by Dani Collins
Two lessons of disguise, erotic pleasure and liberation from renowned author Dani Collins
Mastering Her Role
Arianne has it bad for her friend and neighbour, Jason. Unfortunately, rumour has it that Jason has a kinky side, and Arianne’s inner freak is still hiding in the closet. So Arianne asks Jason to introduce her to his friend Dominic—a sexually dominant instructor in the ways of pleasure. And so Arianne begins her lessons of sexuality, lust, and being thoroughly and deliciously ravished. But behind his mask, Dominic seems awfully familiar….
Playing the Master
In a week, timid Ann Parker will belong to the coldly handsome Porter Navarro—a marriage arranged by her vicious stepfather. But when she’s secretly made over and presented to Porter as “Violet,” she is initiated into his world of dark, exquisite delights. One where he is master. But it’s only as Violet that Ann tastes true freedom. And her liberation will cost not only her sensual teacher, but the man she’s grown to love….
The Dani Collins Erotic Romance Collection
Mastering Her Role
Playing the Master
Dani Collins
Table of Contents
Mastering Her Role
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Playing the Master
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Mastering Her Role
Chapter One
“If I didn’t know better, I’d suspect you of trying to seduce me,” Jason said.
Arianne looked up from her coq au vin. A prickling sting crept into her cheeks and her heart stuttered. Was she that obvious?
Her nerveless fingers pleated the napkin in her lap—the cloth napkin that matched the linen tablecloth tinted golden by the late-summer sun.
“Because I went to a bit of extra effort? The catered meals you order outshine this any day.”
He took a moment to nip the last bit of flesh from a petite drumstick, set it aside and licked his glossy fingertips. The wet sound and flick of his tongue, coupled with the way his gaze stayed fixed on her face, made her breathless and fluttery. Hot.
Who was seducing whom?
Her scorching cheeks continued to burn, but she couldn’t look away.
“If you think so highly of what I serve, why have you been declining to join me lately? This is the first meal we’ve shared in weeks. What’s going on, Arianne? Have you been angry with me about something?”
She shook her head, growing even more self-conscious and uncomfortable. This attraction, crush, obsession—whatever it was—had already become impossible to stifle, even before she’d heard a snippet of gossip about him that had thrown her into a tailspin.
“I’ve had a lot on my mind. I wanted to ask you a fa…vor.” Her voice quavered. “But I wasn’t sure how to approach it.” She cleared her throat.
“Yes?” He took up his wineglass and sipped from the oversize bowl.
It was a good white. She’d asked around to be sure. He didn’t seem to notice, only stared like a predatory cat. His eyes were keen slits and his body still and ready. He looked that way when he taught her fencing, and she knew it meant he’d be giving no quarter.
Honestly, why on earth did such a dynamic, chiseled, sexy man waste his time with his frigid, repressed neighbor? His body belonged on a professional athlete, all lean muscle and economic movements. He was intelligent with a dry wit and had excellent taste in everything. He couldn’t lack for female company, yet they’d been sharing two or three meals a week for nearly a year. She’d been the one to reach out initially, thinking he must be as heartbroken as she was when their partners ran off together, but now…
Now she felt like the most naive fool in the Western world.
“I don’t know how you pass yourself off as a writer of technical manuals,” she muttered with mild disgust, sipping her own wine and looking toward his stately mansion with a view of the ocean. What a Cinderella she was in her modest guest cottage, purchased from the mansion’s previous misfortuned owner by mortgaging herself to the rafters. She was so beyond her league here.
And so besotted.
“I didn’t hear a request for a favor in that statement.”
“No.” She almost wanted to quit now and look a small fool than pursue insanity and become a bigger one, but after weeks of wrestling this problem, she had made a decision and would stick to it.
In a minute. When she found her nerve.
She buried her nose in the bouquet of chilled sauvignon blanc.
“I don’t know how you pass yourself off as a successful real-estate agent,” he mocked gently, swirling the liquid in his glass. “It requires a great deal of risk, yet you balk at taking the small one of asking me a favor? Does it have to do with my work? Do you need an engineer’s perspective on something? A house?”
“I would get that from a construction engineer, wouldn’t I? Not someone with a doctorate in biotechnology. Why does that make you smile? I always have the feeling you’re laughing at me.” From the very first meeting she’d sensed he was—not better than her, but more. More worldly. More experienced.
“I’m not laughing,” he said, amusement hedging his words. “I just like it when you take that tone with me. I hear it when we’re fencing sometimes, and I know it means you’ll give me a fight. That’s the woman capable of closing the million-dollar deals, isn’t it? Why don’t I see her more often?”
“Why don’t I see the technical-manual writer more often?”
“Touché.” He tilted his wineglass. “We all show different personalities for different occasions, don’t we?”
He shows his wild side in the bedroom, not the boardroom, Celine had told Arianne once. It had jump-started Arianne’s curiosity, making her wonder what it was like to possess a wild side. Pretty soon her marriage had seemed tame. Too tame.
She hadn’t known how to change it, though. Telling her husband that she’d like to spice things up would have been the blind leading the oblivious. And it hadn’t seemed worth the potential consequences of looking foolish and perhaps denting her husband’s tender ego. Craig had been a pouter. And she hadn’t thought he’d want to try new things. Craig had been gorgeous, but conservative and very set in his ways. He’d fought her on buying this cottage, calling it too risky.
The purchase had come with grave consequences for both of them, but Arianne had wanted this house very, very badly, and now she had it. That risk had been worth it. She knew how to sell and negotiate and cut a deal. Surely she could channel that for a moment here? For something else she wanted very, very badly?
“You keep spacing out on me.” Jason leaned forward, his long fingers tucking her hair behind her ear.
Her pulse rushed to pound in her ears and make her arteries tingle. “Rude of me. I’m sorry.” Her face heated. Below the table she felt the leather of his boot brush the arch of her bare foot.
She withdrew, then could have kicked herself.
This was exactly what she was trying to overcome, but his boot felt so male and dominant. It made her heart beat fast. It reminded her she wore only panties, no pantyhose, for the first time. For him, because he didn’t like nylons.
That was something she loved about him, the way he encouraged her to loosen up, telling her women shouldn’t buckle to convention, but wear what they liked. Do what they liked.
When he’d said that, slightly drunk a few months ago, it had been with his hand on her knee. She hadn’t exactly rebuffed the light pass, she just hadn’t known how to react to it. While other girls had been losing their virginity in high school, she’d been helping her father care for her mother. When her twentysomething friends had been perfecting the art of hooking up, she’d been studying for her real-estate license. Now she was divorced, aching in ways she didn’t even know how to describe, but too busy paying her mortgage to get out and date.
How much easier this might be if she had let Jason take her up to the room he’d shared with Celine, but she had been certain it was only the approaching anniversary of their shared humiliation that had prompted his offhand invitation. And she’d known she was no match for him—no competition for Celine. It would have killed her to have him once, only to disappoint him. There was no question she would have. Then she wouldn’t even have their friendly suppers any longer. No, if she truly wanted to win him, she would have to be more woman than she currently was.
She deliberately placed her foot back next to his. She was hyperaware of the slight abrasion against the side of her bare foot and ankle. Heated prickles climbed her calf. Being so forward embarrassed her. She could barely lift her head to see if he noticed.
He betrayed nothing, seemed lost in his thoughts, hardly breathing as he stared into his wineglass.
She caught her breath at how handsome he was with the candlelight throwing shadows across his face now that the sun had set. She was as tongue-tied as she’d been when Celine had introduced herself and her “lover,” Jason, eighteen months ago.
Celine had been as stunning as he was, if not a stark contrast with her fair looks against his black hair and toasted-almond skin. Arianne had wished herself to be as blonde, lithe and given to grace. She didn’t know why she had longed to attract Jason’s notice—not when she had her steady, sturdy husband—but the yearning had been there.
There had been fear, too, of course. She had felt the power of Jason’s potent sexuality and had been both frightened and fascinated, unaccountably shy and wanting to hide behind her husband. Craig had fallen under Celine’s spell in a similar way. The difference was, when the time came, Craig hadn’t been afraid to act on his urges.
“Tell me what you need, Arianne,” Jason said in a husky tone, his gaze lifting. She could have sworn the pressure of his boot against her foot increased, making her blood race in an alarming way.
She needed to stop being so afraid of such feelings. “I want you to introduce me to Dominic.”
* * *
Jason pushed himself away from the table, away from watching all that he’d carefully built come crashing down. When he reached the short stone wall surrounding Arianne’s patio, he turned to face west, to the dark border of hedges and the streetlights beyond, rather than looking at his own mansion and the window to his downfall.
Only when he felt the butt of concrete against his knee did he realize it was too late to say, “Who?” It came out anyway, and he heard Arianne’s scornful noise behind him. Funny, but he didn’t appreciate her impudence this time.
“Don’t play dumb,” she said. “Celine told me—”
“What?” he demanded. His hands clenched into fists as he braced himself for the lash of Arianne’s contempt. Surely she would express some. Maybe even worse.
Then it struck him, what she’d said.
“You want me to introduce you? Why? Do you even know who he is?” His gut knotted around the little dinner he’d eaten. He didn’t want to explain. How could he? He barely understood it himself.
“Celine told me he helped her discover herself. Sexually.” Her voice strained to pronounce the last word.
“When…?”
“I bumped into her at a salon a few weeks ago.”
“What else did she say?”
“Would you quit yelling at me?”
“I apologize.” He reined in his flare of temper. “I wasn’t expecting this.” He caught back cynical laughter at the understatement. No, he had begun to imagine something else entirely would come from this dinner. Attempting a calm tone, he forced himself to turn and face her. “Why would you like to meet him?”
She was still seated and kept her head down so she spoke into her lap. “I’m not exactly the most sensual person in the world. I thought he might help me with that.”
Disbelief pressed against the back of his throat.
“Arianne,” he scolded. “Look at yourself. The way you cook…” Rich and delicately spiced. “Your home…” Plush in texture, with splashes of exciting color. “Your hair…” She didn’t know what to do with the thick, waving mass, she’d said once, but leave it to fall around her shoulders. He could think of a thousand things to do with the mink-colored tresses, all of them involving naked skin.
She shook her head. “Craig—”
He made an angry noise and took a step toward her before he reminded himself to remain in control. She had the capacity for passion, but it still startled her. “Your ex-husband was not the type of man to bring out that side of any woman.”
“He lacked sophistication, true, but so do I. At least he had the nerve to explore new horizons.” She buried the words in a quick sip from her wineglass.
“Are you calling the lower end of town the ‘horizon’? Because that’s as far as the two of them got. They’re currently cutting a sexual swath through the natives there. I hope that’s not what you aspire to.”
“Of course not! I just want to be…different.”
“Different how?” She was positively seductive exactly as she was. When color rose in her cheeks like that and carnal promises grew in the curve of her pouted lips, he imagined exploring the finer points of erotic pleasure with her. Teaching…learning. Oh, yes, she had it in her to expand his horizons, but until tonight she’d quelled every hint of interest in doing so.
The way her marriage had crumbled was to blame, and he couldn’t rush the kind of healing she’d needed. He’d understood and tried to be patient while she found her way back to feeling attractive. Now that she was here, he wanted her to explore her sexual boundaries with him. Not Dominic.
Clasping his hands over the back of the chair he’d vacated, he said, “Why would you feel a need to be different?”
“Because no man wants a woman as stifled as I am.”
“You’re shy.”
“Would you quit patronizing me?” She threw her napkin onto her plate and stood to stack dishes. “I’m so inhibited that just pressing my foot against yours made me feel…”
“What?” he prompted, excitement sweeping through him again at the remembered glory of her making advances for the first time.
“Like it’s wrong. Like I’m a slut or something.”
“Arianne.” She had only hinted at this before with brief remarks about a strict upbringing by elderly parents. A confession once that she’d developed early and was teased mercilessly. An embarrassed retelling of the office Romeo calling her a tease.
Until this moment he hadn’t recognized the true height of the walls erected around her sexuality.
“Did you like it? The touch of my boot against your foot?” he asked, feeling tension coil in his center.
“I don’t know! But I wanted to let it happen without—” She clunked down the plates and her gorgeously full breasts heaved. “I’m tired of being a freak.”
“You’re not a freak.” He stepped behind her and placed his hands on her slumped shoulders, digging gentle thumbs into the ridges on either side of her spine. Months of carefully introducing innocuous touc
hes had brought him this far. It was the only tension release she allowed him to offer, and it never seemed to relax either of them no matter who gave or who received. Nevertheless, he took advantage of the liberty so he could reassure her. Touch her. Drink in the luscious feminine scents of cosmetics and unacknowledged arousal.
“You’re still patronizing me,” she said.
“I’m not and you’re insulting me by saying so.” Her hair tickled his knuckles. It was all he could do not to pull her back against him so he could ease the ache in his groin by pressing into the firm, lush curves of her bottom.
“I have hang-ups,” she murmured. “I can’t even relax when you give me a harmless massage.”
Because she sensed it wasn’t harmless, he thought wryly.
“Feeling self-conscious about the way your body reacts to sexual stimulation does not make you a freak. There are other ways to overcome it than what you’re suggesting.”
“Don’t you dare offer a pity—” she knocked his hands away and turned on him “—l-lay.”
“Fuck,” he provided. “It’s called a pity fuck. And you’re bent on pissing me off, aren’t you? Why would you accuse me of offering such a thing?”
“I’m sorry. That wasn’t exactly what I meant, only that you’ve never thought about me like that, so you must be just trying to be nice right now.”
“Which would still amount to a pity fuck and aside from the fact that it’s not in me to be that nice, if you would like the truth, I began thinking of you ‘like that’ the very day we met across this stone wall. You were wearing a yellow summer dress and I thought it would look better without the bra.”
She swallowed and brought her arms up to hug herself, shock seeming to steal a layer of color from her skin. “Well, you can see how ignorant I am. I had no idea.”
He wondered if he should mention that he could see her nipples hardening now beneath her silk blouse and lacy camisole as she plumped her breasts with her crossed arms. No, she was doing her withdrawal thing, turning away to collect dirty dishes again.
“And now that you do? Have an idea, I mean?” he asked, moving in front of her so she couldn’t retreat to the house.
