Free A Starlet in Venice by Tara Crescent Page B

breath and tried for calmness. “What did you have in mind?”
    Please, please, say sex, I begged inwardly. I’d been curled up against his body every night for the last three days, and the most I could do was touch him a little bit. It had been the most trying three days of my life. Unused as I was to sexual desire, the frustration was doubly hard to take.
    He grinned at me. “In Cork, I seem to recall a very beautiful woman tell me she wanted to be trained as a submissive,” he said. “No, let me correct that. She wanted to be trained as my submissive.” The note of possession was clear in his voice. “I thought we could start.”
    Prickles of anticipation wound their way through my body, along with some nervous tension that I immediately banished. If I didn’t trust Liam perfectly, I wouldn’t have asked for this. For me, sexual curiosity only bloomed in an atmosphere of complete safety.
    I nodded, and Liam shook his head. “I’d like all my instructions acknowledged verbally.” His voice had changed. It was smooth and dark and hard.
    “Yes Sir,” I replied softly. Once again, as I said those words, I was enveloped in a feeling of serenity. It was so freeing to turn myself over to Liam.
    “Very nice.” We’d pulled up in front of Casanova. “Why don’t you go upstairs to my apartment, shower and wait for me in my bedroom?” He glanced at his watch. “Will forty-five minutes be sufficient?”
    I nodded, then remembered what he said to me about acknowledging his instructions. “Yes Sir.”
    His lips twitched as he continued his instructions. “Kneel by the side of the bed, put your hands behind your back, and wait for me.”
    “What should I be wearing, Sir?”
    “Underwear,” he responded. “Any other questions?”
    “No Sir.”
    He pulled me towards him roughly, and wound his hands through my hair, kissing me on my lips with hunger and passion. “Such a good rabbit,” he said, nibbling at my lower lip, then nipping my tongue. “Are you going to be well-behaved, I wonder?”
    At that moment, all I wanted to do was be obedient for him. “I’m going to try, Sir,” I breathed, and he smiled at me, warmth radiating from him.
    “That’s all you ever need to do, rabbit. Give it your best try. Now, go. Time’s ticking.”
    I nodded and headed to his apartment. My heart was beating in my chest.
    ***
    Liam:
    No matter what anyone said, the most important part of dominance and submission was the openness and the communication. I needed to know what turned Tia on. What she was afraid of, what she was intrigued by, what she wanted out of this.
    We needed to discuss styles and expectations as well. I was obviously kink-inclined – I worked in a BDSM club, after all – but I didn’t want a full time submissive. I didn’t want a slave. What I wanted was something very much like what I had already with Tia, an easy, untroubled friendship, marked by laughter and conversation. But I also wanted a loving, committed relationship. Oh, and in the bedroom, I wanted to be her Dominant.  
    Basically, I wanted to have my cake and eat it too.
    I didn’t have any sex toys in my apartment. I never bothered; Casanova was better stocked than most stores. Had I been involved with someone seriously, I would have amassed a collection, of course, but it had been casual sex and nothing else ever since I moved to Venice. My writing career had occupied most of my time, and Casanova had occupied the rest.
    Then I’d met Tia, and slowly fallen in love with her as we became friends, and all of last year had been filled with painful celibacy, as I ached for the woman who was upstairs in my bedroom, kneeling and waiting for me.
    I grabbed a set of glass butt plugs from one of the cabinets, a vibrator, some tweezers-style nipple clamps, where I could adjust the ring to lessen the sting of the bite, some leather restraints for her wrists and her ankles and a leather collar. I didn’t need a collar to proclaim ownership, but