My Addiction

by Cassie Ryan

  A terse grunt sounded over the line. Before he could start his familiar tirade, she forged on. “After all, I learned my dedicated work ethic from you.”

  Silence.

  She was proud of herself for keeping her tone civil and slipping in the backhanded compliment, since he’d always bragged about his long hours spent working and his “sacrifices” for the sake of providing for his family. She had spent her entire life hearing about them.

  After a long moment of only the sound of shuffling papers and the soft creak of his office chair, it began.

  “Kathryne, if you would have stayed in medical school, your long hours and dedication would have counted for something. But dropping out of school to play with websites is beneath your potential.”

  She stiffened. He was needling her. While she would never match her father’s net worth, she made enough to sustain a comfortable L.A. lifestyle without dipping too often into the trust fund her grandmother had left her. Especially since the first thing she had done with that trust fund was buy this penthouse.

  Her father knew all that, but it still wasn’t good enough. Ever since she was a child, he had pointedly ignored anything she excelled at that didn’t meet with his expectations. He’d decided before she was born that she would go into medicine, and by the laws of the great Richard Fretwell III, she was supposed to fall in line with that plan.

  She massaged her temple with her free hand, trying to stave off the beginnings of a father-induced headache. They tended to be worse and longer-lasting than any migraine she had ever experienced.

  He continued, reciting well-memorized lines. “You should be back in school studying to be a surgeon, or a neurologist, at the very least.” He cleared his throat again, which sounded almost like a growl. “When are you going to give up this nonsense and get back to school?”

  His hard tone was all too familiar. It was the one he used to tell subordinates that King Fretwell was right, they were wrong, and their compliance was expected. She had stopped being cowed by that when she was sixteen.

  She swallowed her anger and fought for calm. “I won’t rehash this with you again. I have no desire to be in the medical profession. My work makes me happy, I make a good living, and that’s what matters.”

  She kept speaking before he could interrupt. “Is there an actual reason you’ve been calling me, or are you still trying to bully me into doing what you want? Because if that’s it, let’s hang up now and save us both time and aggravation.”

  “Kathryne Jane Fretwell,” he began, his voice ominous, reminding her of when she was small and had dared commit some minor infraction that earned his displeasure.

  Before Kate could stop it, a laugh bubbled up and spilled out over the phone line. It wasn’t a happy sound and definitely didn’t bring any lighter feelings with it. “Seriously? Are you hoping by using my middle name, I’ll suddenly have an epiphany that everything you say is gospel?”

  His normal diatribe began and flowed over her without any of the individual words registering. She had heard a variation on the same theme ever since she could remember, and she wasn’t willing to waste another minute on it.

  “When you have something to speak to me about besides trying to run my life, then you’re welcome to contact me. Until then, I’m done.” She took the phone away from her ear and touched the red button to hang up. Not quite as satisfying as slamming it against the desk, but she wasn’t about to subject her iPhone to that treatment over his majesty, Richard Fretwell III.

  She looked back at her computer screen, trying to remember where she’d left off. This was just a design update, so it wasn’t as challenging as some of her other corporate projects.

  Anger still burned in her belly. She wouldn’t be able to get back into work mode right now. In fact, the only reason she had been sucked into work as soon as Dex had dropped her off was the urgent email from her client that these changes on the front page of their site needed to be done before seven a.m. tomorrow.

  They asked for similar changes almost weekly. The adjustments were never difficult, but tended to be time consuming and sometimes tedious. Today’s involved hiding seven coconuts somewhere in the front-page design for their time-share resorts based in Atlanta. They had time-shares all over the world, but it was almost always the ones in the U.S. that needed these odd changes.

  She pushed her hair over her shoulder. They paid on time, the work was easy and steady, and it was their money to waste on such mindless updates if they chose. Although she often wondered what their marketing department was smoking when they came up with such odd last-minute requests.

  Maybe it was for a promotion of some kind? But that meant they had weird promotions nearly every single week.

  She shrugged.

  Whatever.

  She frowned. In the past, she would never have gotten to the “whatever” stage with a project. Her understanding of a company’s motivations was part of what made her a good graphic designer. She vowed to figure this latest challenge out.

  She knew exactly where this new laissez-faire attitude had come from.

  Over the last few months she had started to realize the city of L.A., and even The Dungeon, was no longer working for her, and she had begun to research other options. Part of her dissatisfaction with her hometown was because her father lived here. She loved him, but he didn’t respect her as an adult. His smothering and dictatorial manner had become insufferable, and she was fast reaching her “done” mode with the situation.

  Since she was self-employed, she could work from anywhere that was IT-friendly and easy to find clients. Someplace with a fetish scene like the one she’d always imagined would be a huge plus.

  Thanks to her maternal grandmother’s very generous trust fund that her father had no control over, she could afford to move anywhere she chose. In fact, her grandmother had also left her some real estate scattered around the country that Kate was still deciding what to do with. If she moved to any of those cities, she would already have a home base while she got settled.

  True to her organized and detailed manner, she had already narrowed her choices. The current front-runner was Phoenix. There was an elite dungeon in the city called Club Desire that had a reputation for being the best sex club in the entire southwestern U.S. One of her grandmother’s houses sat in Paradise Valley, a very nice suburb of Phoenix.

  Throughout her research, Club Desire kept popping up, as if the universe was giving her a nudge toward Phoenix. However, there were also good possibilities in Las Vegas and San Francisco. But even though Gram also had a house in San Francisco and some land in Nevada, so far, Phoenix was her favorite. The city itself seemed more suited to her tastes.

  The Vegas dungeon looked good, but seemed like it would attract more of the same types of Doms L.A. did, and she’d had more than enough of them.

  San Francisco was a terrific place to go on vacation, since she loved seafood and the unique character of the city, but she couldn’t see herself living there for some reason, although she couldn’t quite articulate why.

  As an added bonus, there were no earthquakes in Arizona, only heat and occasional dust storms. She could even drive a few hours north during the winter and go skiing.

  And from her research, it sounded like a much better crop of Doms lived in Phoenix. The submissives grapevine said they were highly trained, very creative, and as hot as the face of the sun. She planned to make time for a trip out there soon to see for herself.

  Her jaded heart beat a little harder, braced for disappointment again if a new location left her just as dissatisfied as she had begun to feel here in L.A.

  But she was willing to take the chance.

  Her move to a new city and dungeon couldn’t come soon enough. Her current projects had either been delivered already or were still in testing, except for hiding a few more coconuts for the Atlanta time-share. She could take her laptop with her on the road and handle any bug reports, as well as the requests that regularly came in from Merestone
Resorts, en route. That would allow her to check out her top choice in person so she could make an informed decision.

  Next week, she promised herself.

  She had a flash of memory from tonight’s amazing scene with Master Dex, and a flicker of second thoughts set in.

  She shook her head. One scene with a new Dom, no matter how amazing, shouldn’t alter the course of her life. Dex had already said he was only in L.A. for an “undetermined” amount of time, and she refused to make her life’s choices around a man, something she’d seen so many of her friends do. Kate was an independent and self-sufficient woman, and she would damn well act like one.

  That decided, she returned to her previous train of thought about her dissatisfaction with L.A. and what she needed to do about it.

  Next week I’ll rearrange some priorities and start my road trip to a new life.

  For the first time in a long time she felt lighter, like she had something to look forward to.

  Kate saved her latest changes, already thinking about the best way to work off the aftereffects of the call with her father.

  It was too bad Master Dex had dropped her off and left so quickly. Another session like the one they’d had at The Dungeon earlier would relieve her of the rest of her stress. Although she wasn’t sure her body could handle more flogging at this point, no matter how much she loved it. Or even a dozen more orgasms—although Master Dex had told her with a smug smile that he’d given her a baker’s dozen just to make sure she knew he always followed through on his promises.

  She sighed happily and concentrated on every wonderful ache. The only one noticeably absent was the one between her thighs. She had hoped he would fuck her senseless after the amazing flogging, but reluctantly admitted she had been so far gone in subspace that she wouldn’t have remembered much about it anyway.

  She smiled as she thought about him.

  Several of the Doms she knew and even played with wouldn’t have cared if she was in subspace or not—they would have had sex with her and dumped her in aftercare to rouse whenever she would.

  Another pang lanced through her that maybe she should wait and see how long Master Dex would be in town, but she squelched the traitorous thought.

  No. It was a great night, and it can be a great week, but I will not structure my life around a man—any man.

  She had seen some of the marks Master Dex had left on her earlier when she’d gotten home and quickly changed, but right now she craved seeing them again.

  It was time for the shower that had been derailed by the urgent message from her time-share client. Apparently her father’s work ethic really had seeped into her over the years.

  A firm head-butt against her ankle reminded her that Rusty wanted his dinner. He was used to coming to tell her at midnight or even one a.m. that he was hungry, since Kate had a bad habit of getting so sucked into work that she would forget to eat, sleep, or even pee. She scooped up the orange tabby, cuddling him like a baby as she walked into her elaborate kitchen.

  The previous owners had added walnut cabinets and stainless steel appliances. While Kate wasn’t a gourmet chef, she could cook, and enjoyed it when she had time. But she often ended up grabbing something on the go and eating it over the sink, rather than cooking a full meal and eating leftovers for the next few days. The high-capacity ice-maker in the freezer door was the most used part of the kitchen besides the fridge.

  Diet Pepsi, iced coffee, and iced tea kept her going through long work sessions, or even challenging conference calls. Very few of her clients were local, so she spent more time than she would like on the phone.

  She set Rusty gently on the floor, enduring his meows of impatience as she spooned the Friskies turkey and giblets dinner into his bowl. It was his favorite, and she’d started buying it online in bulk to avoid Rusty’s pouting when the grocery stores ran out.

  She spoiled him, no doubt about it. Her father had never let her have a pet when she was little, so when she bought this place and could do as she pleased, she’d gone to the shelter and immediately fallen in love with Rusty.

  The cat was apprehensive and sometimes downright aggressive around men, so hadn’t been adopted. In fact, when Kate found him, he was only a week away from being euthanized. The shelter didn’t know much about his history. He’d been brought in as a stray, but wore a fancy collar and was gentle and friendly with women, children, and other animals.

  Kate and Rusty were a perfect fit, and early on, she had learned to trust his judgment. If she brought a man home and Rusty hissed, scratched, or bit him, Kate steered clear. The cat apparently had better intuition than she did.

  With her companion happily eating, she scratched him behind his fuzzy, orange ears before heading to her bedroom for a much needed shower.

  As she stripped off all her clothes and tossed them into her laundry basket, she winced when a few particular sore spots made themselves known. She stretched her arms toward the ceiling, shrugging her shoulders and rolling her neck from side to side to work out some tightness that had settled in from the call with her father.

  She walked naked into her decadently huge bathroom, and in the large mirrors that hung over her double sinks and long vanity she caught sight of the myriad of wonderful red and purpling stripes across her normally too-pale flesh.

  A rush of warmth pooled between her thighs as vivid memories of her scene with Master Dex replayed inside her mind. She turned back and forth looking at herself from all angles, appreciating the marks she would be able to carry for the next few weeks to remind her of the best flogging she had ever received.

  Some of the flogger’s tails had snaked around her torso, so she had a few small stripes on the sides of her breasts and hips as well as some on her mons. The memory of that wonderful stinging against her sensitive skin make her shiver.

  The warmth that filled her overflowed until it caused a smile that she felt to her toes. Kate hugged herself and slowly turned in a circle, appreciating the beautiful design of stripes one more time before she stepped in the shower.

  Her phone chirped from the bedroom, and she shook her head as she remembered it was still in her jeans pocket, which was now on top of her dirty clothes in the hamper. She padded back to her room and fished out her phone, curious who would be texting her at nearly midnight on a weeknight.

  When the words Master Dex flashed onto her screen, the warmth and the buoyant feeling inside her chest reignited, and she held the phone to her chest like a high school girl who had just received a text from her first crush.

  The thought made her laugh, and she gave in to it, letting the sound echo around her bedroom before she returned to the bathroom, sitting on the side of the large stone tub to read her text.

  Wanted to make sure you are all right. You were very “relaxed” when I dropped you off.

  She laughed at the word relaxed, which, as Master Dex well knew, was an extreme understatement.

  Kate typed a text back: Still relaxed, but a bit more aware. :) Hey, don’t you still owe me food? I’m starving, and it’s your fault!

  She grinned as she hit SEND.

  Rusty ambled into the bathroom and twined around her ankles, wanting attention.

  “Hey, little guy. Done eating already?”

  He tipped his face up to look at her, pinning her with his golden gaze as he continued to lick his chops.

  She leaned over and rubbed the top of his head between his perky orange ears and then scratched under his chin.

  He rubbed the side of his chin against her hand, chin-marking her as her phone chirped, alerting her to another text—hopefully a reply from Master Dex.

  Rusty stared accusingly at the phone before curling on top of her feet and getting comfortable.

  Kate glanced at the display to see Master Dex’s reply:

  I’m a man of my word. Any idea what’s open this time of night? I’ll be there in ten minutes.

  She scowled as she realized she hadn’t gotten a shower yet. “Damn.” She quickly
typed back, Grabbing a shower, can you make it twenty?

  Before she could carefully stand and untangle her feet from Rusty’s warm, purring body, her phone chirped again.

  Twenty it is.

  Kate laid her phone on the counter, took the elastic band out of her hair, tossing it near her phone, and then stepped into her large, natural stone tile shower with the surrounding showerheads. When the glass door was pulled shut behind her, she turned on the taps full blast to send a large flow of water out of the calf-level spout. Within seconds, the water heated, and she pulled the toggle to reroute the water through the multiple showerheads.

  At the first surge of spray against her already sensitive skin, she jumped and made a squeaking sound that would have embarrassed her if anyone had been around to hear it.

  She kept her showerheads set to the highest setting, so it felt like continuous hard, sharp pricks hitting her from every direction. That setting was great for her neck and shoulders after long work sessions, but after an amazing flogging, it was a bit uncomfortable.

  She quickly dialed all the showerheads down to softer levels and then stood beneath the spray with a relieved sigh.

  Just below her nape and the back of her right shoulder hurt more than they should at this point, but the rest of the flogging area was only slightly tender, which was normal. She would just have to keep an eye on those two spots. But she wasn’t concerned.

  Besides, with as much pleasure as she had wrung out of the entire experience, it was worth a little more lasting pain that usual. At least it was to her.

  She smiled and resisted the urge to linger in the shower.

  Since Master Dex was already on his way, she quickly washed her hair, rinsing it well, and then soaped her body with her favorite French vanilla shower gel. She normally would have taken time to shave, even though she had shaved this morning knowing she would go to The Dungeon, but right now she wasn’t willing to spare the time.

  After she was fully rinsed, she turned off the shower and squeezed the excess water from her long hair before opening the glass door and laughing as Rusty streaked inside to lap at the water still flowing down the drain.