Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 88350 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 442(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 295(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88350 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 442(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 295(@300wpm)
Apparently overcome with remorse, she’d begged Beau for another chance. It had been an impromptu, stupid thing, she’d assured him tearfully. A one-time lapse in judgment. He was her true Master, she’d sobbed, prostrate with apparent grief as she begged him for forgiveness. She would suffer any punishment he decreed, if only he’d give her another chance.
While it didn’t sit right with him to exact some kind of penance in a BDSM context, he’d believed she was sincere in her remorse. Still in love, he’d been willing to try and patch things up.
Until he’d caught her again a few months later, this time with a guy she’d apparently met online through a BDSM hookup site. Fool me once…
The breakup had shaken him to his core and made him doubt himself. What had been lacking in him that had led her astray? If he’d been a more attentive lover, a sterner Master, a better man, would she have stayed true?
The passage of time blunted the worst of his pain, though a part of him had continued to hope she’d come back to him. Eventually, he heard from a mutual friend that she’d hooked up with some billionaire movie producer and had moved to California. It was only then that he accepted she was gone for good.
Eventually, he’d returned to the BDSM clubs, ready at last to move on. But the scar tissue that had built up around his wounded heart made it hard for him to trust again.
He had met attractive, sexy women in the scene, and even brought one or two of them home. But nothing had lasted. Even Sakura, as enchanting and utterly submissive as she’d been, had only been a rebound relationship, one with a built-in expiration date when he returned to the States.
Instead, he’d focused on his career, losing himself in his PhD work, telling himself he had plenty of time to find love again, or let it find him. Somehow three years had slipped by. He was thirty-five and, to quote Lia’s mother, “Not getting any younger.”
He resolved to change that aspect of his life going forward. He was in a new town with a new job and new possibilities. Thoughts of Renee, when he thought of her at all, no longer made him sad or angry. Yes, there remained a certain wistfulness, but he was relieved to realize he’d finally well and truly moved on.
He was ready to open his heart again. He would find a new submissive for his own. Someone strong and feisty, but completely submissive to her Dom. Someone like Lia, perhaps, though a decade older. The Garden, the BDSM club Anthony owned in town, would be an excellent place to start.
He heard the shower water turn off. His cock, he was relieved to see, had deflated sufficiently so as not to be embarrassing. Lia appeared in the bathroom doorway, toweling her cotton-candy mop, looking sexier than she had a right to. Damn if his balls weren’t tightening again.
“You can go down to the quarters until dinner. I need to handle a few things on my laptop,” he lied.
She furrowed her brows at this, but then nodded. “Yes, Sir.”
It was going to be a long week.
≈
Lia sprawled on one of the comfy couches in the slave quarters, holding a pillow to her body. Lucia, along with Juliette and Kinsley, had joined her and sat listening with rapt attention as she vented about Beau’s mixed messages.
“One minute he’s all business—as much of a hard ass as Lawrence, and the next I swear to god he’s about to make love to me. I don’t know if I’m reading more into this situation than there is or if he’s just jerking my chain because he can.” She hugged her pillow. “Or maybe I’ve somehow landed in a romance novel, and he’s fallen madly in love with me but has to wait until our training contract is up before he can confess his true feelings.”
She barked a laugh to show she was kidding, though she wasn’t—not entirely.
“One-on-one training can be super intense,” Lucia said with maddening gentleness. “It’s easy to get confused about feelings on both sides when you’re right in the middle of it. Don’t get me wrong. I think Beau is a terrific guy and a good fit for you as a trainer. There’s a definite connection between you, and I could totally see the two of you together. I just would hate to see you get hurt because you have expectations that he’s not able to meet.”
“Cut it out,” Lia said, making a face. “You’re messing up my nice fantasy with annoying doses of reality. Don’t you know hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul?
“Oh, I like that,” Lucia exclaimed. “It’s so poetic.”
Lia laughed. “Wish I could take credit. But that’s Emily Dickinson.”