Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 86510 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 433(@200wpm)___ 346(@250wpm)___ 288(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86510 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 433(@200wpm)___ 346(@250wpm)___ 288(@300wpm)
“What about?”
He slides the underwear on under the towel and then drops the towel to the floor. “About what we both want out of this.”
The dark blue stretchy fabric of the boxer briefs perfectly accents his muscular thighs and perfect ass—not to mention the beautiful bulge in front. My skin sizzles, but I ignore it. “What if all I want is to be with you for a few days? What if I want to sit this one out, so to speak?”
He frowns. “What do you mean by that?”
“Taking a break from the club scene feels pretty good, Ronan. Having vanilla sex was…nice. It’s been a long time for me. I never thought I’d want it again, but—”
He holds up his hand to stop me. “Last night was very enjoyable. I won’t say that it wasn’t. But Mary, a vanilla relationship isn’t what I want.”
My heart drops. “I know that, Ronan.”
“I would like you to be my submissive,” he says. “But until you’re ready to get back into that scene, I don’t want you to think this relationship is something that it isn’t.”
“I don’t think anything of our relationship, Ronan.”
But I’m lying.
And I’m sure he knows I am.
I could fall in love with this man. And I never thought I wanted to be in love again.
…
Sometimes when your heart is broken, and you realize it will never be whole again, you find ways to patch it.
That’s what Brenda says, anyway.
“Perhaps it’s best that we end this,” Lucas said to me that last night, after I confessed my love to him.
Lucas was my first Dominant. We met in college, though he wasn’t a student. He was a professor. Never my professor, but he saw something in me. He groomed me into the submissive I became.
And I did something really stupid.
I fell in love.
I’m not the only woman to get screwed over by someone she thought cared for her.
Far from it. Lucas and I were different. I should’ve seen that from the start.
But I was young, innocent, naive.
Ignorant.
I’d never been in love before. I’d never even had sex before.
Lucas took my virginity—and he took it in a gentle and sweet way. It wasn’t until months later that he introduced me to the BDSM lifestyle.
I was taken aback at first. Creeped out, for sure. But I was falling in love with this older, experienced man, and I wanted to please him.
So I allowed him to teach me, and I found I was a natural submissive. I grew to enjoy the lifestyle. But with Lucas, I wasn’t simply a submissive. I was his lover, too. We didn’t only play scenes together.
We had regular sex, too. Vanilla sex, he called it. And it was enjoyable for both of us—at least I thought it was, even when he said we were no longer dating in the traditional sense. That we were Dominant and submissive, nothing else.
Still, I thought he loved me.
With Lucas, I felt I had it all. The love that I thought I needed, and the sexual satisfaction that came from submitting in a club environment. Plus we kissed. We kissed all the time. And I loved the kissing.
I learned my hard limits with Lucas. He was good to me. But it only lasted until I left college. After two years, when my father died and I couldn’t afford to go back, Lucas ended things—and his timing was impeccable. I’d just confessed that I had fallen in love with him.
Then I realized what his true fetish was.
As a professor, he fetishized students. He was very careful. He made sure to find a student who wasn’t interested in what he taught, which was sociology.
I intended to be a business major, so I fit the bill.
I considered going to the dean and reporting him for dating students at the school.
He told me it was okay, as long as they weren’t students in his classes, but a careful reading of the university’s rules indicated otherwise.
“Mary, don’t do it,” Brenda said. “All it will do is keep the wound open. It will fester. You may take Lucas down, but you’ll do more harm to yourself. It’s better to move on.”
She was right.
So I moved on.
I left school when my father died, and I found employment at Treasure’s Chest, made peace with the fact that I wouldn’t finish college—at least not yet—and I began to do some research on how I could continue in the lifestyle but stay out of a relationship.
Because I was done. No more love. And no more kissing.
I could have the sexual satisfaction I craved, the submission I craved, but steer clear of relationships.
They only lead to heartache.
Chapter Twenty-One
Ronan
“I think I want to go home, Ronan,” Mary says to me after wiping the powdered sugar from her lips.
We’re back at Mémé’s for beignets—Mary’s request, because she wanted to see Mémé again—but I am planning to take her to Café du Monde tomorrow so she can get the full experience she said she wants.