Free Unrestrained by Joey W. Hill Page A

his hands on her upper arms, a brief reinforcement of his words. He touched her hair.
    Letting her go, he pulled out a chair, gestured. “Sit.”
    When she complied, he retrieved his drink from the rail and took the chair next to hers. Though he leaned back, his knee stayed close to hers. “So tell me what you want, Athena.” His expression wasn’t hard or unkind, just unrelenting. She reveled in that inflexibility, the decisiveness, and it gave her the courage to set a course.
    “I’d like to try a few sessions here. With you.”
    “Not at the club?”
    She shook her head. There were certain Dommes at the club who wouldn’t understand this, an established Mistress deciding to switch. She didn’t want to handle explanations, field veiled insults from people she liked to think of as friends. But beyond that, she was Roy’s wife there. “I would pay you. A professional arrangement.”
    “No.” His tone brooked no discussion on that point. “We do the sessions, see how it goes.”
    “Too personal. I need for it to stay professional.”
    “Then hire yourself a pro. That’s not my deal. You connected with me, you want something from me. Same goes. You’re not a timid woman, Athena, and I’m sure as hell not shy about what I want. I want to see where this leads. How about you?”
    If she looked over her shoulder, she thought she’d see Jimmy’s shocked face and the entire membership of the club behind him, judging.
    “It’s just you and me here,” he said. “I know you worry about what others might think about this side of you. That’s expected. But I’m interested in your husband. If he was alive, what would he think?”
    “If he was alive, I wouldn’t be considering it. He needed something different.”
    He studied her. “Athena, did he know you’re a submissive?”
    Just like that, a simple statement that shifted her world. She’d almost backed out of this meeting several times, embarrassed at her foray into an area she experientially knew nothing about. Yet every morning she’d woken from dreams where her subconscious embraced it. Flashes of her on her knees, Dale’s hands on her, his mouth demanding things that went far beyond her body and deep into the core of who she was . . . of who she might be. She woke from such journeys aroused, uncertain but titillated, flushed by the rush of imaginings that pursued her outside of sleep.
    During the daylight hours, she’d tried to contain and trivialize them. But when he acknowledged the truth now, all of that internal chatter died away. It simply . . . was. Like the breeze riffling his short hair, the intent focus of his blue-green eyes. It was as if he’d lifted a boulder off her chest, releasing the anxiety she’d been carrying, thinking about this moment.
    “I’m not sure I even knew,” she said. “Not until he died. It wasn’t something I thought about. It wasn’t onerous or awful, being his Mistress when he wanted that from me. I loved him, loved making him happy, and he made me happy. People don’t understand that anymore. What honor and cherish, responsibility and love really mean.”
    “No. They don’t.” He spread his fingers out on the tablecloth. She’d said something that had surprised him, she could tell, but she wasn’t sure in what way until he gave it to her. “A lot of people have a hard time understanding what drives a SEAL to do what we do. Honor and duty, responsibility . . . love of country . . . sacrifice. They don’t understand, because so many of them no longer know what those words really mean. They’re not monuments and medals.”
    “Just the way marriage isn’t about flowers and diamonds on your anniversary.” She met his gaze.
    He nodded. “You’re concerned what others at the club would think of you, but you don’t seem to feel that way about your husband’s memory. You don’t think he’d judge or condemn you for it?”
    “No. His form of submission was a deliberate decision to