Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 93751 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 469(@200wpm)___ 375(@250wpm)___ 313(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93751 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 469(@200wpm)___ 375(@250wpm)___ 313(@300wpm)
“I never got the chance,” Mason retorted. “She wants nothing to do with me and I can’t really blame her. She grabbed her shit and bailed before I could say a thing.”
Mark raised his brows, a perplexed expression on his face. “You mean she just vanished?”
Mason frowned. “Yeah, basically. She hid out in the slave quarters until Anthony took her back into town. You know that.”
“Ah,” Mark said, leaning back with a self-satisfied smile. “So, she didn’t actually vanish. She just went back down to town, where you go at least three times a week, am I right?”
“Well, yeah, but—”
“No buts about it. Have you asked Anthony for her contact information?”
“Well, no, but—”
“So you could communicate with her. You could go see her. If you had the balls.”
“What’s the point?” Mason snapped, refusing to react to Mark’s taunt, which was so obviously designed to goad him into action. “It’s over and done with.”
“If that’s true, Mason,” Mark replied, his tone gentling, “then why are you still so completely and utterly obsessed with her?”
Mason opened his mouth to deny it.
Mark was watching him with an I dare you to deny it expression.
Mason closed his mouth and looked away.
Mark was right. Try as he might, Mason couldn’t get Hannah out of his mind. Though she’d only spent an hour in his bed, it now felt empty without her in it. Though he was aware she was all wrong for him—he required a 24/7 slave girl to be fulfilled—his first thought on waking was of Hannah.
Not just what he could have done differently in terms of her training. But on that one, stolen kiss. On the way she’d fit so snugly against him, as if their bodies were made from two parts of a whole. Of how much he had enjoyed having her in the kitchen. She was lively and intelligent, not to mention a damn good cook in her own right. He missed her dimpled smiles and her sweet innocence when it came to the scene. She was like a rare flower that, instead of handling with care, he’d crushed in his big, brutish paw.
To his astonishment, tears suddenly filled his eyes. Startled, he wiped them away. This time when he got to his feet, Mark didn’t try to stop him.
“Look,” Mason said, almost managing a smile. “I know you mean well. Anthony means well. Lucia means well. Everyone means well.”
He sighed. “It doesn’t matter how many times I go over what happened. Bottom line—Hannah’s gone. I had thought there was something that went beyond trainer and trainee starting to happen between us. But maybe that was wrong, too. When things went haywire, she didn’t try to speak to me, not then and not since. I fucked up. She hit the road. End of story.”
“So maybe it’s time to write a new one,” Mark replied.
≈
It had been two weeks since Hannah’s melodramatic departure from The Enclave. Anthony had been more than kind on the drive home. To her relief, he hadn’t lectured her about running away or encouraged her to stay and give it another try. He had simply apologized on Mason’s behalf and hoped she wouldn’t let that one experience stop her in her personal submissive journey.
“When you’re ready,” he’d said gently, “you might want to reach out to Mason, if only to give yourself some kind of closure. Meanwhile, please know that you’ll always be welcome at The Enclave, Hannah. That writer-in-residence position is still open,” he’d added with a smile.
When she’d arrived back at her silent, empty house, she’d made a batch of double chocolate brownies. Taking the entire pan with her, along with a chilled bottle of white wine, she’d plopped down on the sofa to watch old movies on TMC. Wiping away the tears that kept slipping down her cheeks, she’d worked her way steadily through the brownies and the wine until she’d fallen into a drunken sugar coma.
When she came to at about three in the morning, she took two aspirins and drank two large glasses of water. Wide awake, she’d thrown out what was left of the brownies, put the empty wine bottle in the recycle bin and taken a long, hot shower.
“That’s it, Hannah,” she’d said to her image in the bathroom mirror as she dried her hair. “You had your night of indulgent self-pity. Now it’s time to get to work.”
Writing had always been the one thing in which Hannah could totally lose herself. Despite her less than auspicious exit from The Enclave, her experiences and observations had given her fodder for at least a three-novel series. After a year’s hiatus, she was finally ready to get back into the groove. Armed with a steaming mug of strong coffee she’d sat down at her laptop.
For the first time in over a year, her mind and her fingers were in sync, and by eleven that morning, she’d written the full outline of her next Angelique Rose novel, along with the first two chapters. The novel would be about a BDSM romance writer who finagles her way into a special compound where Masters and their slave girls live a BDSM lifestyle 24/7. The heroine goes through various trials and tribulations as she explores her own submissive tendencies and desires.