me,
sexually.
He knew that I loved it rough, but that he
did not. He knew that I’d once ask him to choke me, just a little
bit, but that he simply could not do that to me. That I’d once
asked him, after a drunken night out, if he’d tie me up, rough me
up. He’d done it, but I had sensed his discomfort and he’d been
unable to climax.
The next morning had been tense and awkward
and neither him nor me had ever spoken about it again.
“ I love you,” my husband
said and pressed a kiss against my neck. “And I always will, no
matter what.”
“ No matter what?” I
repeated, closing my eyes, a feeling in the pit of my stomach as if
the floor had given away beneath me.
“ Always.”
Chapter Three
Tom
Three days.
Three days until she had texted me, asking
for a quick chat over coffee, if I was I still interesting in
selling my house.
No, I wasn’t.
But fuck, I was interested in her.
But it had taken her three days to text him,
damn. I had hoped she wouldn’t be able to resist. It had been no
accident that her friend Susan had given her some saucy information
about me.
I had counted on it.
And after seeing her in her own house, I was
even more convinced that she was the girl for me. My new pet to
handle, to teach, while giving her exactly what she wanted—a mutual
agreement of dominance and submission.
And I wanted her to fully know what I liked,
what I was. Not your normal lover, not the man who will cuddle
after I come down your throat.
I was the man who will tell her that she’s a
good girl and then give her what she wanted most. A man who will
dominate her, push her, control her, tell her what to do, fuck her
hard.
Her master.
Chapter Four
Jules
I took a seat in the coffee shop where Tom
had agreed to meet me.
Just real estate talk, I told myself. Just
about his house. I couldn’t afford the chance to pocket a
commission that big.
At least that’s what I told myself.
In truth, I had been unable to get Susan’s
words out of my head. Unable to get his rugged face out of my mind.
The dark hair that was cut short and neat. His square hands with
long fingers. The way he had almost said nothing at the dinner
table but had still felt so present, so domineering of the
conversation.
How the other guests had sought out his
thoughts. How his voice had sounded—dark and quiet and
authoritative.
How he’d looked at me across the table, his
eyes seeking mine. A dark gaze I was unable to hold for longer than
a second.
How I had the feeling that all of his
attention had been on me the whole time until I had all but
vibrated with inner tension.
“ Hi, Jules,” Tom said,
sliding on the chair across from me. “I see you brought me
brochures?”
“ Yes,” I said, blood
rushing to my face, glad that he was oblivious to my thoughts. “To
give you an idea of the current market.”
I clutched my marketing material to my chest
as if it could protect me from the nervousness that had exploded
inside of me after seeing him.
He took it out of my hands, his fingers
brushing over my breasts.
“ Thanks,” he said, seeking
my gaze. “But that’s not why I came.”
I lowered my gaze to escape the intensity of
his face and played with the sugar packets in front of me. that I’d
made a mistake in meeting him, then registered what he’d said.
I looked up again. “Not why you came? So
you’ve decided against selling you home?”
“ You know why I am
here.”
I shook my head. “Sorry, I think there’s
been a—“
“ If I’d ask you if you
prefer the touch of a riding crop or a whip between your legs, what
would you say?”
All air went out of me. Did he really just
ask me that? I stared at him, noting how incredibly relaxed he
seemed. I curled my hands around the edges of the table to ground
myself, and rose slowly to my feet.
I wanted to tell him to go to hell, to go
fuck himself but all I could was shake my head, my