NAUGHTY BITS - A Male Dominant / female submissive BDSM romance novel

She’d gotten into the habit of treating a self-inflicted climax like the impulse decision to eat a cookie. Empty calories but instant gratification, no matter the regret afterward. If Logan were here, he would deny her. Just thinking about that, the mere fantasy of his presence, made her wet. How dangerous would the reality be?

EXCERPT FROM NAUGHTY BITS – Buy links at https://storywitch.com/book-nb-nbc/

Logan revealed a carved wooden box. Placing it on the counter and opening it, he withdrew a pair of police handcuffs, a key, and what appeared to be a tarot deck, contained in a transparent gauze bag. The cuffs made her stiffen, but he put the three things down before her in a precise line.

“I thought a little experiment might help you understand how Alice ran her store so successfully. You’ll be alone when you do it. It’s a self-test.”

That made her feel a little better, but even so, Madison wasn’t giving an unconditional response to anything. “What kind of test?”

He put his finger on the key and met her gaze. “Freeze this in an ice tray. Change into something that makes you feel sexy. I’m thinking you go for the simple and devastating. A lace black thong and nothing else, except a necklace. A pretty choker.”

She had a jet bead choker. It was one of her favorites, reminiscent of the 1940s. Maybe because of the close fit around her neck, the caress of the beads, it always made her feel supremely feminine and sexy. She’d had an all-too-similar sensation when he’d closed his fingers around her throat.

She didn’t say anything, waiting for him to continue. She wasn’t going to tell him about the choker, and she definitely wasn’t going to get in an in-depth discussion about her underwear choices. But she didn’t tell him to stop.

“After the key is frozen in the ice, put on the cuffs. Take the ice and this deck of cards to an open space on your floor. Kneel.”

When he spoke the one word, her knees weakened. She thanked the gods she was wearing slacks that covered the reaction. With that penetrating scrutiny, Logan could probably discern an elevation in heart rate, let alone a visible quiver in her knees. “Fan them out in a circle around you,” he said, “and flip thirteen of them randomly. When you look at the images, think of them like breadcrumbs, leading you to your own fantasies. Then think about the type of breadcrumbs the store can offer people coming through your door, helping them reach their own.”

He was an expert in his field, so to speak. This was his milieu, and he was simply trying to help her understand how to run the erotica store her sister had left to her. Being entranced by how he put the items back in the box, and how his fingers felt brushing hers when he handed over the box was incidental.

The carving on the top was the triskelion. As her fingers slid over it, he nodded to the symbol. “Do you know its meaning?”

“I know it represents BDSM somehow.”

“It can represent a lot of things. The three sections”—he placed a finger on one of them— “can symbolize safe, sane and consensual, the core mantra of BDSM. Or the three types of practitioners; Doms, subs and switches. A lot of important things in life connect to a trinity.” He shifted his hand, touching her knuckle as he did so. She didn’t move it away. Acknowledging it, he lingered there, teasing the soft, thin skin between two of her knuckles. She realized she was holding her breath again. She felt his eyes on her, but kept her own on their hands.

“The small hole in each section represents how the need for Dominance or submission can’t be satisfied alone.”

He touched her chin, lifting it so that her eyes met his. “No one figures everything out the first day, Madison,” he said mildly. “Alice said you were a type A personality, a perfectionist. You have to give yourself time to learn.”

Alice was never afraid of making mistakes. Of course, why would she have been? Her sister’s mistakes had a way of turning into successes, whereas even Madison’s successes often turned out to be failures in disguise. She was afraid of doing the same to the store Alice had loved.

“Thanks for the box.” Hugging it to her, she stepped back. “I might do it. It beats surfing cable.”

Or dreading another day of the polite, get-away-from-me looks from her customers. If this could help her feel better about that, it might be worth it. But she wasn’t going to make him any promises about doing it. “Thanks for all the lessons. Professor.”

He didn’t say anything and she frowned, looking down at the counter again. “You make me uncomfortable when you stare like that.”

“I don’t think making you comfortable is what you need from me, Madison. But I do like to see you smile.” Pulling a magnet off the antique cash register, he handed it to her. “On the house.”

“’Think of all the women on the Titanic who passed up dessert.’” As she read it, she couldn’t help it; she smiled, and it stayed there when his expression eased into the same.

“That’s better. I’ll walk you out.” He took her elbow. “When you stay late, you should move your car to the front, or let me know when you’re leaving, so Troy or I can escort you. It’s a safe area, but a deserted alley is still a deserted alley. Best not to take risks.”

Yet he and her dead sister had no problem pushing her to risk her sanity, with his not-so-subtle offers to unleash his Dominant side on her senses. Hell, he was already doing it, as if it was such an intrinsic part of him, he couldn’t help himself when he was around a submissive.

She flinched inwardly. Stop thinking of yourself that way. “It’s nice of you to do this, but I’m sure it’s fine.”

“I’m sure it is. I’m still walking you to your car.”

He was moving her down the center aisle, back past the fasteners, hooks, ropes. She tried not to think of all the ways they could be used. Dom Depot, indeed. But the danger was never the sword, but who was wielding it. Nice phallic entendre there, Madison. Alice wo uld be smirking.

She set her jaw and stopped, pivoting toward him. “Even if I say no?”

She’d put the box under an arm and held out her other hand to bring him to a halt, which brought her palm in contact with his chest. He was solid muscle, and distracting curls of gleaming chest hair, revealed by the open collar of his shirt, tempted touch. They were only a few inches above where her fingers rested. She pressed them against his flesh, an attempt to quell the urge, and realized she’d conveyed something else.

He closed his hand over her wrist, then he closed the space between them. It was a gradual but inexorable movement, like tides rising. The words she intended to say went away as he held her gaze, a restraint as effective as the ropes behind her. Which kind of proved her point about the sword, but she wasn’t opening her mouth to make it.

Keeping his attention on her face, tracking her every reaction in a way that couldn’t help but make a woman feel like the center of the universe, he lowered her arm to her side. His grip shifted, and now that same arm was being slowly twisted behind her, her knuckles brushing her ass, then the small of her back. His knuckles pressed against the top of her buttocks as he held her hand behind her. The position arched her body so the tips of her breasts almost touched his chest.

“The word No means nothing to me when it conflicts with your well-being, Madison.”

Her swallow was audible. “Let go of me,” she whispered.

“That’s not what you want me to do.”

“No, but . . . please.”

He did it with kindness, caressing her wrist before stepping back. “I’m walking you to your car,” he said firmly. When he gestured her to precede him, she turned back in that direction, trying to scrape up her shattered composure. As they moved toward the exit, he thankfully stayed quiet, though his hand settled on her back again. The gesture was so easy for him he couldn’t possibly know how raw and exposed it left her.

They were approaching her back door. He’d open it for her, and she’d get in her car like some dutiful puppet whose strings he’d managed to pull all the right ways, making him think he could do that tomorrow, and the next day.

She spun around and faced him, holding the box between them to ensure she didn’t make any unwise contact this time. “I get it. You think you’re some Master-Dom-guru who can bring people to the light through whips and chains. Well, that’s awesome for you. Go and start a cult somewhere. But I’m not signing up. As for what Alice told you, about giving me to you¸ that’s more of her bullshit. The type of things that made people think she was this amazing, quirky person who everyone wanted to be around, who everyone loved, who never had her heart broken . . .”

Her voice was shaking. She thrust the box at him. “You were her friend. You don’t have to be mine.”
He closed his hands over hers on the box and took it, but only to set it aside on one of her shelves. “I have no intention of being your friend, Madison. Not that way.” Then he curled his strong fingers over her nape, exerted pressure. “Come here.”

“I don’t want this. I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to do any of this.” She didn’t jerk away, just resisted him with counterweight, futile against a man who was twice her weight and at least half a foot taller. He put his other arm around her waist, using it like a lasso to bring her to him, one reluctant step at a time.

“Come here,” he repeated quietly. She’d never had a man talk like that to her, equal doses of irresistible command and compassion, gentle strength and authority, which had her body throbbing as much as her aching heart.

Once his chest took up her vision, he wrapped both arms around her, her hands curled tense against her sternum, mashed between them. “Just breathe. I’m sorry. That was too much, too soon.”

She stood in his embrace, rigid. But not withdrawing.

“I wanted too much, too quickly,” he said. “You have that effect on a man.”

“Yeah, right.” But she didn’t have the courage to look for the truth. Not right now. His arms felt too good. She should pull away. Instead, she leaned, a little bit.

“Did she . . . did she have a lot of bad days?” The words were muffled against his chest.

He sighed. “She said the good days always outnumbered the bad, until the end. That was when she called you. She loved you, Madison. You were the only thing she wanted, at the last.”

“Shit.” She closed her eyes tight, pressing her forehead against his chest. “I loved her, Logan.”

“I know that. So did she.”

“I don’t understand any of this. Especially what you felt about her, and how that relates to me. How that can be a good thing. I’m not her.”

He straightened, holding her away from him to give her a look that had an edge to it. “I told you I know that already.”

“Yeah, but what people say and what they understand about themselves are pretty different. For a long time I told people I wasn’t anal and I actually believed it.”

His lips twitched at that. Then his expression sobered and she suspected he was considering his next words carefully, a shift in the air that brought the tension back between them. She still didn’t move out of his grasp. The touch of his hands was something she couldn’t resist.

“At one time,” he said, “I found Alice very intriguing. Fascinating. I even entertained the idea of a romantic relationship. But as colorful and passionate as she was, she was really quite grounded.” He shook his head. “She explained she genuinely loved everyone so she didn’t have to risk her heart on loving someone. She told me you were the brave one. Despite having your heart broken, shattered and stomped upon, you kept looking for the right person to care for it. She said if you ever found the person you could trust enough to let go—the person who deserved your trust—you would finally find that.”

He cleared his throat. “She knew me better than anyone, Madison. She told me I didn’t want her. I wanted you.”

She didn’t know how to deal with that, but tears were brimming, a response to hearing what her sister had thought of her. He took the hem of his shirt and dabbed her eyes with it, making her choke on a half chuckle. One nervous hand landed on his bare abdomen. Her fingers pressed into the hard ridges as his head lifted, a different awareness in both their eyes now.

“I need to get home,” she said, pulling back from him. She didn’t wait for his reply. Instead she grabbed the box off the shelf and pushed out the back door, aware of him standing in the entrance, watching her until she got into her car and drove away.

She felt as though she were fleeing the scene of an accident.

* * *

Hearing Alice’s perspective of herself floored her. She’d never really thought about it, because Alice had always seemed to have a lover . . . or two. But she’d never talked about marriage or commitment. Had she ever?

Madison was still pondering that when she fell asleep. She slept better than she had thus far, alone in Alice’s house. She’d slept in her clothes, Logan’s sawdust and aftershave scent lingering in her nose. When she woke in the morning, she found her arms wrapped around herself, and recalled a dream of strong male arms surrounding her, the way he’d held her at the store.

A shower seemed the most neutral decision. She stayed in there awhile, leaning against the wall, letting the spray roll over her. When at last she reached for the soap, lathered it up and ran it over her skin, her mind went to Logan’s hands. Resting on her lower back, closed over her wrist . . . her throat. She laid her fingers in the same place and closed her eyes. With the water drumming in her ears, it seemed safe, isolated, to think about it. To want his hands on her again. He surrounded a woman with his presence, his strength, those penetrating eyes.

She thought about the box she’d left on the kitchen table. In an uncertain mood when she arrived last night, she’d lifted the lid only long enough to fish out the key and drop it in a filled ice tray, telling herself that didn’t commit her to anything. Would he ask her about it, next time she came into the shop? She didn’t like feeling obligated. But he’d offered it to her as a way to help her. What else was she going to do today?

Dressed in a terry cloth robe, running her hands through her damp hair, she went to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee. As she added sugar and cream, she studied the box, then propped her hips against the counter, sipping from the mug. After a few moments, she sidled over to the box and folded back the lid. The cuffs were on top of the card deck. Noticing a folded note in between the two, she put her cup down.

Opening it, she saw what she assumed was Logan’s unexpectedly neat, even handwriting. Just like an old-fashioned schoolmaster. It was insanely easy to envision him with queued hair, tight breeches and a long coat. Take away the fancy computer at the front of his store, and she could see him standing in the same spot three hundred years ago, behind an antique register and a carved wooden counter. His woodworking shop had possessed power tools, but also a lot of hand tools, so she thought he wouldn’t feel out of place at all.

She’d be the student sneaking glances at his groin in the snug breeches and getting her knuckles rapped. Or kept after school and held firmly around the waist, clinging to his side as he applied that ruler to her backside. He’d make her pull up her skirt so it marked her skin through the thin drawers . . .

Thinking of her room upstairs, she wondered if Logan liked to play dress up. Did he wear leather and chains at his club? A pirate shirt and boots? The ridiculous thought intrigued her far more than it should. She turned her attention to the note.

Relinquish control—on your own terms.

Relinquishing control made her feel like she was trapped in a bucket, waiting for the bottom to drop out. But in this case, Logan was presenting her with a way to see the store differently, help her excel with it. A pretty unorthodox way, granted, but as she’d realized yesterday, her traditional sales experience didn’t mean squat there. It was an erotica shop, not Radio Shack.

She wandered back into the bedroom, and found the as yet unpacked box with her few pieces of intimate wear and jewelry. Sure enough, she found the choker. And a black lace thong.

She’d never worn them together for a lover, but what was interesting was how often she’d imagined doing so. She’d envision the faceless male hooking his finger under the choker to pull her up off her knees and capture her mouth in a kiss. His hands would drop to grip her bare breasts, squeeze and pinch as she writhed under his commanding touch. She was always on her knees when he did that. He would blindfold her, so she could feel everything even more intensely.

She’d never had a lover she’d trusted enough to blindfold her, or restrain her in a way she couldn’t remove herself. Her spotty Dom/sub attempts with lovers had been very low-key. Even when she’d dared to invite one of her relationship partners, like Gerald, into that dark part of her head, she hadn’t trusted any of them to treat her like one of the submissives she’d seen on her adventures with Alice. But that hunger when she watched them be blindfolded, chained, was a dragon, gnawing on her soul.

For heaven’s sake, it was just her alone here. Dropping the robe on the bed, she stepped into the lace thong. The friction of the back strap against her rim, the way the rest hugged the labia, made her aware she wore a garment that only had two purposes—arousing herself and a lover. When she lifted the choker in front of the mirror and put it on, she watched her nipples tighten, felt a similar reaction between her legs.

She hadn’t opened the curtains in the living area, so she didn’t have to don the robe to move back through the house. It felt decadent, walking down the hallways and through the rooms that way. She pretended her Master had commanded her to wear only this until he came home from work. Such secret 24/7 Dom/sub fantasies usually featured her Master as a man in a suit, his clean-shaven jaw strong, his lips firm with authoritative resolve. She’d kneel by the door, her eyes down as he came home from a day at the office.

Now instead of seeing creased slacks and shiny shoes in her mind’s eye, she saw heavy work shoes beneath the cuffs of jeans. When Logan squatted, tipped up her chin to give her a heated, approving kiss, his warm brown eyes took her over, the rasp of his five o’clock shadow a welcome abrasion to her fair skin.

Okay, Logan could be today’s fantasy. That didn’t mean anything. Logan was a charismatic man and very self-assured. Dominant. Master. She rolled the words over in her mind. She’d always told herself it was a title those in the D/s community gave themselves, like an adult calling himself Captain Kirk because he donned a Star Trek uniform for a sci-fi con. It didn’t translate outside the mass delusion of that exclusive community. Logan was the first Dom she’d met who clearly emanated what he was outside a club environment. He’d affect a ninety-year-old grandmother, let alone her.

Since she didn’t care to dwell on the fantasies he likely inspired in all those female gardening customers, ninety-year-olds or otherwise, she retrieved the box from the table and the ice tray from the freezer. Snagging a dish towel to fold beneath it, she brought all of it back into the living room.

First the cuffs. When she fitted one around her wrist, latching it with that ticking click noise, she remembered Logan’s fingers circling her wrist. When she secured the other cuff, a tiny expulsion of cream bloomed against the crotch of her thong, dampening her flesh. Nerves tingled across her breasts as if his fingertips had teased the flesh there.

She’d gotten into the habit of treating a self-inflicted climax like the impulse decision to eat a cookie. Empty calories but instant gratification, no matter the shame or regret afterward. It was easy enough to do, whether by manual or electronic means. As such, she thought about lying down on the floor right now to masturbate. Given how the cuffs were affecting her, she expected it wouldn’t take long. More empty calories, but the impulse was strong. Really strong.

If Logan was here, he’d order her to go through with the whole experiment first, denying her. Building her response, much like the very thought of him making her do his bidding did now. More dampness between her thighs, a hard contraction that made it even more difficult to resist that masturbation urge. If the mere idea of Logan bending her to his will could result in that reaction, how dangerous would the reality be?

One of her former boyfriends, Gerald, had told her BDSM was deviant behavior, something that could quickly become a sex addiction if she indulged it. Since he’d treated patients who’d gotten lost in that world, he’d unnerved her with the half-assed diagnosis. Probably the only thing that had saved her from being fully sucked in was Alice’s reaction to the comment when she’d told her about it. What a fucking idiot. The other thing that had kept her from being swayed was his delivery, more a resentful accusation than the honest concern of a lover.

This was just her in her living room. No accusations against, no persuasive suggestions for. Just her own mind and her own reactions to face.

Alice had always kept the living area clear to do her yoga, which made it the best area to do it. Logan had been here, tending Alice, so he knew the layout of her house. At his store today, would he be thinking about Madison doing this, in the thong and choker? If she invited him to dinner at some point, would he stand in the doorway to this room and visualize her kneeling here?

Of course he would. For all his Master-of-the-Universe routine, he was a guy. The moment he’d said thong to her, he’d probably stripped off all her clothes in his mind. From here forward, if she wore a parka to work, he’d still see her as a naked paper doll.

He’d probably chuckle at her cynical observation, making her nerve endings ripple with the masculine sound. Hell, just hearing it in her head, they danced. Kneeling on the carpet, she shifted into a seated position on her hip and reached into the box with her bound hands to remove the deck. She loosened the drawstring bag so the cards could slide out. The backs displayed a brilliant blue color with detailed gold edging. A note had been slipped under the band holding the cards, the folded top showing more of his neat handwriting.

Read this. Don’t look at cards first.

She opened up the note and found a repeat of the instructions he’d given her. Had he given these out before? And to whom? It didn’t matter. She could hear his voice, his calm, authoritative way of talking as she read the words.

Fan out the cards in a circle around you, face down. Choose thirteen at random to turn over. Whatever is on the card, consider how that picture or word makes you feel. Does your pulse elevate? Are you afraid? Intrigued? Aroused? If it’s a body part, touch yourself there. Think about someone else touching you there. Let the cards create a fantasy for you.

She laid out the cards around her. In the center of that blue field on the back of each card was a single gold star, something that had been obscured by his note. While it was pretty, eye-catching, the face sides were works of art.

Her first card showed a fecund goddess with heavy, bare breasts lying amid lush red flowers. In the top left corner, in bold calligraphy, was the word Breast. At the bottom right corner was a smaller word, the ink more refined. Heart.

She thought about the direction on the note. Touch yourself. The goddess in the picture was doing it, supporting one breast in a hand. Madison cupped her own breast, ran her fingers over it. She imagined herself as that goddess, drawing a male like Troy to her, an earth mother offering sustenance and pleasure. Bringing his mouth to her nipple, she’d cup his head, twine her fingers idly through his sandy hair as he pulled on her breast and desire swirled in her loins like planets orbiting a sun.

Her mind twitched impatiently away from that, toward far more dangerous imagery. Logan’s strong hand closing over her breast, possessing it, thumb passing over the nipple, his other hand at her waist, holding her still as he bent. He didn’t intend to suckle her like a child of her universe. He was here to conquer a goddess, so he captured the nipple in his heated mouth, nipping and pulling on it in a way she felt all the way to her womb, making her thighs loosen for him . . .

She turned over another card, the next word sending an arrow of sensation directly to the subject. Cunt. It was in white letters against a black cavernous circle, around which were twined black and red roses. A snake made a circle around all of it. A smaller word was printed in the lower right corner, against a tiny blood red heart. Soul.

Curious, she chose three more cards and discovered the same pairing pattern: Possession/surrender. Pain/release. Blindfold/trust.

She stared at that last card for a while. It showed a man and woman twined together, bound by red rope so they couldn’t move, but they didn’t look as if they desired to do so. His arms were wrapped over her shoulders, hers threaded beneath his to cling to his waist and back, her face pressed into his chest. She was the one blindfolded.

Two more cards. Collar/belonging. Whip/flight.

Her reaction was climbing at an exponential rate, the flesh between her legs throbbing, her neck pulse thumping. With every restless shift of her body, she was reminded she wore the cuffs, the choker, the thong. She looked like a submissive, a sex slave, kneeling on the floor and playing sensual games with herself until her Master came home.

Unnerved by the thought, she forced the focus from herself to Logan’s training of Troy. She imagined the male submissive in nothing but a collar, kneeling in an aisle of the store while customers moved around him, unconcerned, knowing he was waiting for his Master . . . Was he waiting for his command? His punishment?

He would be staring at the floor. She couldn’t see herself in the same position, surrounded by people like that. Or could she?

As her mind’s wheels turned, she flipped six more cards, taking her to the thirteen. Then she kept going, until she’d turned over all of them. They ran the gamut of sexual play, from positions, to role playing, to toys . . .

She slid from her hip down onto her back, the slick cards pressing against her skin. She stretched her cuffed hands over her head, her body elongating, arching up, as if she were displaying herself for a lover. She wanted to spread her thighs, wanted to be commanded to spread them. She wanted his hands gripping her, pushing them apart, making her do his will. She closed her eyes, not wanting the reality of her surroundings judging her.

She rotated her hips, taunting him. Yes, she was bound to his will, but she would do all she could with her body to beg him to come to her, to touch her. He would stand back in the shadows and watch, letting the moments stretch out, her body getting more and more excited as she lifted her hips, lowered them as if he was already inside her. Fucking her. He wouldn’t let her demand, wouldn’t let her take control. He would let her keep doing what she was doing for his pleasure, his enjoyment, and that would just make her hotter.

Now at last he would speak. Touch yourself, Madison. Rub your cunt for me.

She shuddered at the thought of his whisper, his fiery eyes burning her. She lowered her hands, and when the cool metal of the cuffs pressed against her pelvis, her fingers reaching her clit, her body bucked up, ass and shoulders pressed into the floor. A gasp broke from her lips. “Yeeess . . . please . . .”
He liked her begging, enough to make her do it for all eternity. He was a sadist, and she craved that, didn’t want him to give in to her. She wanted to know he held the power, the decisions. That she, the ultimate control freak, controlled nothing. Her only choice was to belong to him.

Sliding her fingers beneath the thong, she found her labia silky slick with her juices. She tweaked her clit, stroked the tender inner crevices that had so many nerve endings. She pushed up beneath the clit hood, increasing the intensity there, and then slipped her fingers inside herself. Watching her fuck herself with her fingers would make him harder, maybe make him take a step out of the shadows. That powerful body getting closer . . . She thought of his muscled chest beneath her hand, fingers twining and tugging on his chest hair.

She rose and fell, her hips twisting and grinding against her touch and the floor. The cuffs pressed into her lower abdomen, her thighs, and the fingers of the hand she wasn’t using dug into soft flesh. “Please . . . may I . . . let me . . .” She whispered it, and heard—at long, long last—the order.

Go over for me. Only for me.

She tightened up all over, forcing her thighs to remain open to increase the intensity of it, even as she wanted to curl into a ball around that hand and contain all those spasming nerves into one prolonged wave. She cried out, the sound echoing in the spacious room, and she rode the feeling until it ebbed away under her fingers, leaving her twitching and trembling there on the living room floor.

She turned onto her side, curling around that core. When she brought her trembling hands back up to her face, she smelled herself as she tucked her fingers under her cheek.

The ice cube tray had turned to water, the key floating at the top. She could unlock herself at any time. She didn’t move toward it. She didn’t want to leave this feeling behind. Somehow, the cuffs were vital to holding on to it. She preferred to think of herself as waiting for him to remove them. She’d wait as long as he required. Days if necessary.

It made her think of that scene in Secretary, Maggie at the desk in her wedding dress. A lot of people hadn’t understood that scene. Probably like Gerald, they assumed it was a sickness. But it was no different from the knight who swore an oath of fealty to a king and went into a hopeless battle for him. The test wasn’t the battle. It was proving his oath was more binding upon him than anything else, that his devotion and loyalty to his king, his Master, couldn’t be swayed.

It was a fantasy, yes, because you couldn’t trust another human being that much, could you? But you could pretend for a little while.

The cards beneath her were sticking to her perspiring flesh. When she moved the one beneath her cheek, she discovered it was the Possession/surrender one. The graphic was a woman kneeling, a collar on her throat, a tether wound around the hand of the male lover who stood over her. She looked up at him, and he touched her face. Even as an illustration, the bond between them was unmistakable.

In her last few relationships, the crap had taken over such that sex wasn’t a conduit to deeper emotions—it was a way to avoid them. Here she was surrounded by cards that spoke of sexual things. If the designer had left it there, she might have remained more detached. But adding that one provocative, emotional word to each, as well as the incredible detail of the illustrations, spoke of the far deeper things the physical were supposed to mean. Things she’d shut herself away from, because if the basics of the relationship were missing—trust, belonging, laughter . . . love—what was the rest, but a hollow illusion?

She’d never chosen her relationships based on her craving for a Dominant. She’d run from that, because the choice meant relinquishing control, and no one could be trusted that much.

But a woman could only let fear and repressed desire run at cross-purposes for so long. Gazing at the thirteen cards she’d turned over, she realized how many of them were about the world of Dominance and submission. There were as many cards in the deck not about that type of sexuality, so what did it say, that she’d picked those at random? Coincidence. Accident. She wasn’t going to get maudlin here.

When it came down to it, her personal shit wasn’t important. What was important about tonight was that it had clarified how she could connect with her customers. She hadn’t failed yesterday because she couldn’t sell. She’d failed because, in order to connect, the conduit had to be as open on her side as on the customers’. She was going to have to embrace things she’d kept at bay, face what kind of sexual being she was in order to coax the same to life in those who walked through her door.

It was a useful revelation, but the idea of actualizing it brought the same overwhelming anxiety it always did. She curled into a tighter ball, trying to stave off the despair that started to spiral in her lower belly, spoiling the same track desire had taken only a few moments before.

Then she thought of Logan. His touch, his eyes, the understanding that lay in both, reaching as deep inside of her as the fear and desire combined.

Damn it, she wasn’t backing away from this. Even if she was a screw-up in her personal life, she’d never been a screw-up when it came to business, school, or anywhere the public stood in judgment of her performance. She was going to do what was needed to make this work.

Which meant she was going to go on Friday. She would watch Logan train Troy, would learn more about relinquishing control . . . at a safe distance.
Even as she had that thought, her gaze strayed over the cards again. Her mind scoffed at her.
If there was one thing she knew for certain, it was that the words “safe” and “Logan” would never be paired on a card together.

* * *

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