Free The Submissive's Secret (What's Her Secret?) by Natalie Dae Page A

answer, but a part of me wanted to see if anything was different now that we’d spent so many Friday nights together.
    “That’s entirely up to you, pet. What do you see as your options?”
    Entirely up to me? Well, that was different. I hadn’t been aware of any options other than the one he’d stated from the start. “I only have one, as far as I’m concerned, but it might not be what you want to hear. It isn’t the one you gave me.”
    “I asked you a question and you didn’t answer it. If I didn’t want to hear, I wouldn’t have asked. Games, you know I dislike them, Lori. We made promises. Say what we have to say, no playing about. It works better for both of us that way. We know where we stand. I’m a little saddened you’ve forgotten that rule.”
    I stiffened. His disappointment in me, albeit very mild, had been evident.
    “I hadn’t forgotten,” I said. “But it isn’t as cut and dried as it was. When emotions get involved, they’re not so easily switched off, are they?”
    “They could be, if you’re a particularly strong person.”
    “And you are, Sir?”
    “I thought I was, yes.”
    I frowned. Was he trying to tell me something? Was he breaking his own rule and ‘playing about’?
    “Now who isn’t saying what he has to say?” I said boldly.
    “We need to talk, I see. So, let’s talk. Here. Now. Answer my first question.”
    I sighed, let my shoulders slump. This wasn’t going to be easy to confess. The outcome wouldn’t be what I wanted. I’d be sent out into the lifestyle, feeling as though I’d been scattered to the four winds. Lost. Adrift. And so alone. The lifestyle for me, without him in it, wouldn’t be the same.
    “My only option has always been that you would teach me, help me to understand how a Dom works, how I work as a sub, and then you’d let me go. I wasn’t aware there were any other options. But I do have another, and it’s the only one I can imagine. To have only you as my Master. I don’t want anyone else.”
    There. I’ve said it.
    I held my breath again, the vodka label gauzy now, the music swelling to a crescendo. He squeezed my shoulder again, and I waited for his sigh of impatience. It would tell me everything I needed to know.
    It didn’t come.
    “Do you feel the teaching process is over, then?” he asked.
    “Yes. I know what I want now, you’ve shown me that. Taught me that.”
    “You don’t feel you’ve become attached to me just because of what we’ve shared? That happens, you know. Subs think they love their teachers, when in fact it’s just an emotional tether that holds them together. Easily broken when they find someone else.”
    “Fuck, no!” I said, closing my eyes, erasing the sight of that damn label, and hating myself for blurting out like that.
    What was it I’d said? When emotions get involved… Oh, God, how had it come to this so soon? It wasn’t meant to happen for another four months. A year, he’d said. One year to teach me, then he’d set me free.
    “You believe you care about me?” he asked.
    “I love you. Sir.” I hadn’t meant to say that, not yet, but it had seemed natural. Right. This evening might well end sooner than it usually did. How quickly life changed direction. I’d gotten ready to meet him earlier, full of joy that tonight was actually here, and now look.
    He did sigh then and took his hand from my shoulder. “Turn to me, pet.”
    I bit my bottom lip and swiveled around, eyes still closed, head bowed. There was no question of my ignoring his request—I always obeyed him. What would it be like to no longer hear his commands? How the hell would I manage when kneeling alone at home, naked, knowing it was for no reason at all except an action played out from habit? He wouldn’t call me at the appointed time to ask if I’d tuned in to my inner self and thought of him—only him—and what he was going to teach me next.
    He slid his finger beneath my chin, raised my face, and I could only