Free Mastered: Ten Tales of Sensual Surrender by Kate Pearce, Portia Da Costa, Opal Carew, Marie Harte, Jennifer Leeland, Madelynne Ellis, Emily Ryan-Davis, Carrie Ann Ryan, Joey Hill, T. J. Michaels, Sasha White

remained with him until dawn, even though he knew she was scheduled to work that day. When he’d protested, she’d said she wanted to make sure he didn’t have any difficulties using the lab instruments. She’d also wanted the opportunity to learn as much as she could from him during his temporary visit. In between waiting on sample results, they’d talked of countless things. The colleague who had given him use of the lab had told him Debra was shy, would likely say less than ten words to him while he was there.
    But the damn woman knows everything, Brian. I expect she’ll be running the place in five years.
    He wasn’t disposed to being chatty while working himself, yet he couldn’t seem to stop talking to her. During the daylight hours, he missed her, even in sleep. He regretted not being able to tell her everything she wanted to learn. For the first time since his maturity, he considered taking a full servant.
    She wasn’t close to the servants in the lab or on the estate. Jacob was probably her only true friend, though most the others treated her with kindness and respect. Like Brian himself, she tended to be in her head so much it was difficult for her to focus on the minutiae of small talk. The things that interested her the most she assumed no one else would want to talk about.
    A smile touched his lips as he recalled her telling him how she’d dissected a variety of creatures through her childhood. Their lives had been claimed by circumstance—road kill for the animals, natural lifespan for the insects. Even so, she’d relayed her mother’s horror, the first time she’d discovered her daughter investigating a rabbit’s intestines in their basement.
    She was on the phone with a psychologist the next day, trying to figure out if I was a budding serial killer.
    But he couldn’t rationalize that it was a lack of friends making her so lonely now. He was sitting in the midst of that labyrinth, and all tunnels came back to him. Her Master. He’d thought that she fed herself adequately on what science and sex could offer, but her heart was as hungry as his would be without blood for a month.
    I don’t need him to be like a human boyfriend. I just need to feel…that he’s my Master. That I’m… She was talking to herself in that way a person did when crying, all the thoughts tangled in a rush of feeling, but even then she couldn’t voice it. As the emotions battered him like waves breaking against his own heart, he filled in the words she didn’t.
    That she’s important to me. Now he understood why Jacob had acted like he was a clueless idiot when he spouted off about how brilliant Debra was. She knew that. She needed something different from him. So very different.
    Two years into their relationship, Debra had told him she loved him, and asked if he felt the same about her. It was as if she’d forgotten everything he’d told her back when she had the first mark. That had been his fault, because he’d allowed their relationship to get so familiar, so comfortable, so…close. The next night, he’d taken a female vampire in front of her, Lady Carmela. He knew he needed to teach his servant a never-to-be-forgotten lesson about the vampire-servant relationship.
    Though it had sat in his gut like food poisoning for weeks afterward, he hadn’t questioned his action. He’d told himself it protected her and him. He’d been relieved when she pulled out of the pain, finding a quiet dignity and strength to continue to serve him as she always had. Truth, that had surprised and impressed the hell out of him, but he’d forced himself to conceal that reaction. He’d made himself pull back, become far more reserved with her.
    Yet was it possible he’d done such a harsh and cruel thing because her admission of love had spooked him? Because his own feelings for her had developed so strong and fast, he was afraid of losing everything he was working for? As a result, had he driven the lesson home like a railroad