Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 61332 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 307(@200wpm)___ 245(@250wpm)___ 204(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61332 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 307(@200wpm)___ 245(@250wpm)___ 204(@300wpm)
Finally, when I run my fingers over hers and across her palm several times without a reaction from her, I use the first aid supplies to clean her up, apply some antibiotic ointment, and then wrap her hand in gauze.
“Leave it on overnight, and in the morning—well, later this morning, that is—wash your hands with antibacterial soap and you should be all good,” I tell her, immediately slipping into my doctor persona out of pure habit.
“Yes, sir,” she says, watching as I tear the gauze tape off and stick down the end, all while my eyes never leave her face, specifically her mouth, where she keeps nibbling on her plump bottom lip. I could bandage up pretty much any wound while blindfolded at this point in my career, so keeping my focus locked on those perfectly straight white teeth sinking into that dark pink flesh doesn’t even slow me down. It only makes me want to drop all the supplies, reach around the back of her head, dig my fingers deep into her messy knot of thick, dark hair, and yank her to me to replace her bite with my own on that tempting mouth of hers.
Only I’d sink my teeth in hard enough to leave a mark but not break the skin, intense but not painful, one that would throb and live there just long enough for her to see as she checked in a mirror, maybe even snap me a photo to keep, after being delightfully exasperated I had the audacity to do that to her.
Evidence of my mark on her, my ownership.
What the fuck?
It’s been years… years… since I even had the thought to actually keep a sub of my own. I play regularly, often enough to take the edge off, with trusted and experienced submissives. But I haven’t found anyone who sparks the desire to take it further than that.
No one has even stacked the wood and found the kindling in order for there to be a need to get the match ready for a spark. That’s how far removed that idea has been from my mind. It’s been so long that the thought of being someone’s Owner and Master, of training a sub to be my perfect partner, of a woman accepting and wearing my collar, is almost foreign. As if I had lost all hope and given up on being free to live my life the way I truly longed for.
I almost chuckle when I realize I let my fairy-tale thoughts that got me the nickname “Romantic Sadist” from one of my previous submissives fill my head, before remembering where I am and that I’m not alone.
Those are the types of thoughts I locked away in a deep, protected corner of my mind, so far down and around twists and turns that it had become hidden even from myself. Because like a childhood memory being unlocked by a vaguely familiar scent of perfume or flavor of a sweet treat, I’m suddenly flooded with the realization of just how lonely I’ve been, unable to allow myself to truly connect with someone in a way only felt between a Dominant and his devoted submissive, a Master and his more than willing slave.
I’ve been able to keep those desires at bay for almost four years.
Until now.
CHAPTER
FOUR
SIENNA
It’s not the fact that I’m washing my hands in order to get the tiny dots of dried blood and sweat off that makes me call the bestie for an emergency coffee date. It’s the fact that the first thing that popped into my head as soon as I opened my eyes was his command to do it, and that I felt this compulsive need to do what he said without hesitation. And I did just that. I hopped out of bed, came into my attached bathroom, unwrapped his handiwork, and set to doing his bidding—washing my hands with antibacterial soap.
And when the thought occurred to me I was doing it because he said so, not because it’s what one should do anyway, I told Alexa to call Vi right away, since my hands are still beneath the running water.
“It’s been a while since we had a coffee date. Has inspiration struck?” she asks after agreeing to meet me in half an hour at our favorite little shop, and I finally turn off the faucet and grab a fresh hand towel from the drawer.
I snort. “God, I wish. No. This is even crazier than if my writer’s block were to suddenly shove its ass out of the way and let me type words in an order that actually make sense.”
“Good Lord. What the hell happened, woman? Did you find actual treasure in one of those dumpsters you dig in?” Vi questions, her voice full of shock, and I narrow my eyes at my Echo even though it’s not the Show device and she can’t see me.