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  Master Gareth sucked hard and pressed his fingers in deep simultaneously, and that was it for me.

  My orgasm was like a brush fire, igniting every nerve in my body like a cascade. Every muscle tensed until my back arched off the floor and I pressed my hands hard against his head. He groaned and doubled his efforts on my clit, sucking and teasing until my body had nothing left to give.

  I’m pretty sure I passed out then, because the next thing I remember was turning my head to the side and burying my nose in Master Gareth’s T-shirt. I’m not sure when he’d put it under my head, but the thin cushion was a welcome relief from the cold.

  “You with me again?”

  I had enough energy in me to lift my head off the floor and see him sitting on the chair where we’d started our evening’s adventure. I flopped back to my makeshift pillow, unfortunately connecting a bit too hard and sending my vision swimming.

  “I think so.”

  “Here, drink this.” He was crouched down beside me in a moment, a sports drink held between us. “You’ll want to have Connie or someone drive you home. You’ll find your reactions might be a bit slow until you get a good night’s sleep.”

  Now, I may have just had the most mind-blowing orgasm of my life and my brain was still a bit scrambled, but I could tell there was something not quite right.

  “You didn’t come.” It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that one out.

  He held my gaze to the point of it being uncomfortable. But before I felt obligated to look somewhere else, he dropped his gaze to the floor.

  “You know, you’re a beautiful woman, Liz.”

  Ah shit.

  “And tonight was pretty damn amazing.”

  Somehow I found the strength to hold up my hand. I never considered myself an idiot, and could hear the ginormous but coming my way. I couldn’t handle it. God, I’d just started to figure this shit out, I couldn’t handle…I mean I knew who I was now…I was a sub and he was…he was it!

  “Please don’t.” Somehow my voice wasn’t too shaky. I licked my dry lips and chanced another sip of the drink. “You don’t have to say it.”

  “I think I need to.” He brushed my bangs from my face. “You’re beautiful, you know.”

  Turning onto my side, I made sure my back was to him. My nose was fully pressed into his shirt now and goddammit why couldn’t I ever get this shit to fall in my favor. Just once would be nice.

  “If I said it wasn’t about you, I know you wouldn’t believe me.” His fingers now brushed the back of my neck. “You’re on the beginning of this journey, Liz. You need to find the right person.”

  “You could be the right one.” Yes, that sounded childish, but what the hell did it matter anyway. He was getting out of my life as quickly as he’d fallen in.

  “Or I could be severely fucked up. You don’t know me, Liz.”

  Master Gareth moved away then, and I knew this was my last chance to see him. I rolled onto my opposite side and watched him pick up the items we’d used and put them in a special bin by the door.

  “I still have your shirt.” My fingers were bunched around the fabric, my knuckles white.

  “Keep it. You might want to cover up.”

  “What about you?”

  I hated the idea of him going back out into the club where others would be able to see the beauty of his sculpted muscles, his hard angles and the tension that now ran through his body. Because one look from anyone out there and they would know that Master Gareth was leaving this room in a swath of sexual frustration.

  He turned to look at me once the room was tidied. “I have my jacket behind the stage. Christian was keeping an eye on it.”

  “Oh.”

  “Take your time getting up and dressed. No one will come in here until they know you’ve gone.”

  “So that’s it?” The hollowness that always crept into my chest after it was clear one of my boyfriends was leaving me.

  Which in itself was bizarre because we’d just met. There’d been no commitments, or words of love, hell, he hadn’t even fucked me yet. There was no reason why Master Gareth opening the door should feel as if my heart were being torn out of my chest. He owed me nothing.

  But he didn’t walk through the door immediately. Master Gareth pressed his forehead to the doorjamb, closed his eyes and chuckled. “Fuck.”

  I didn’t say anything else. What else could I say? I’d bought him for one night, to teach me if I could be a submissive or not. That was it. And he more than lived up to his part of the deal.

  “I…Liz, you’re shiny and new. Some Dom out there is going to be very fortunate to have you. Please take care of yourself. Say hi to Connie for me.”

  And then he left, shutting the door with a soft click.

  Chapter Five

  While I’ve never been one for grand gestures or drama of any sort, the week after the charity auction I submerged myself deep in the well of my own personal pity party. I’d never felt so dismissed before, and I hated how it cut into my self-perception. Connie always said that what I lacked in experience I made up with enthusiasm. Feeling sorry for myself was apparently no exception.

  The week after the charity auction dragged on to the point of pain. I went to work, chatted with Connie, went to the gym and participated in all the things that made up my life. I smiled at work and moped at home, but all the while the wheels were slowly turning in my head.

  I had to come up with a plan.

  There was no reason why I had to continue on like some kind of sap. I was a twenty-six-year-old woman with a brain in my head. It was time for me to use it.

  I was a sexual submissive. Okay, that was fine. I could deal with that.

  I had two options on how to proceed with that knowledge. I could hop on to one of the sites Connie recommended, or join the club and make a few inquiries. I could go on the hunt for the perfect Dom, someone who would be willing to take me to the places I needed to go. Maybe, if I was lucky, I might even find someone who would want more than that, an actual relationship.

  Or I could track down Master Gareth and find out what the hell was going on with him.

  Because the more I thought about that night, the more I realized that there was something, some spark between us. I wasn’t ready to walk away from that. Not without a fight. So fuck him and his noble gestures, I wanted an explanation.

  I came to my decision on Thursday. Normally, nothing exciting ever happens on a Thursday, but like everything else in my life, I apparently was going to change that as well.

  “Connie?”

  “Yo.” She was in the kitchen, putting her glass dildo in the dishwasher.

  Christ. “Con, I thought I asked you not to do that anymore?”

  “You said with dishes in there! It’s empty.”

  Once again I had to applaud my self-restraint when it came to dealing with my best friend and roommate. “You and Stephen knew the Dom from the auction, right?”

  “Gareth?” Connie shut the dishwasher and flicked it on before I could protest further. “Yeah, he plays rugby with Steve on Sundays. He’s a prof in the English department at the university.”

  Fleeting memories of Master Gareth’s introduction came back to me. “So he’s smart.”

  “And currently single.” Connie rested her hip against the now shuddering dishwasher. “His wife died in a car accident four years ago. Steve said it nearly destroyed Gareth. She was his sub as well as his wife. He’s only started getting back into the scene this past year, though he hasn’t done very much.”

  The knot of tension that had taken up residence in my chest since he’d walked away from me pulled tighter before it finally started to slip. “That’s horrible.” I crossed my arms, trying to fight off the chill I suddenly felt. “You said you and Stephen did a scene with him.”

  “Yup. Totally hot too. Steve was trying to help him get back into things. It was one of the reasons we wanted you to buy him. We both figured you’d be perfect for each other.”
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  So it really wasn’t just me who’d been set up that night. “It was why you and Stephen gave me the money.”

  Connie shrugged. “We wanted to make sure both our favorite peeps are going to be okay when the two of us go off and get married.”

  Whoa. “What?” I think my voice went up three octaves. “Congratulations!”

  There was hugging and laughter and questions then. I might be a tad neurotic, but I pride myself on being a good friend. “Have you set a date?”

  “Not yet. Probably next spring. I need to sit down and plan everything out. Need to know how many people I plan to invite. How many plus ones to plan for.”

  Subtle Connie.

  The sigh that escaped me was pretty much the most pathetic sound I’d ever made. “He made it pretty clear he wasn’t interested.”

  “He’s a man. Just because he’s a Dom doesn’t mean he can’t be an idiot about his personal life.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  Connie slapped my arm. The bitch. “No yeah buts. He’s teaching a night class tonight. Go talk to him.”

  Which is how I found myself leaning against the cold, beige-colored cinderblock wall of the university’s basement hallway, waiting for Gareth’s nineteenth-century literature class to end.

  Being a business major, I never got into the whole love of stories thing, but there was something engaging about listening to Master Gareth—well Professor Baxter, or I guess I should’ve started thinking of him as simply Gareth—go on about the themes of family and power in whatever book they’d been discussing.

  The class was dismissed with a clap of his hands and a cheer. “Okay, be prepared to discuss George Eliot and Silas Marner. Yes, you have to have read the book. The movie doesn’t count. And yes, I can tell the difference.”

  A few of the students eyed me as they shuffled past and out into the night. I doubt any of them had a clue what their professor got up to after hours. I know I would have been shocked as all get out to learn one of my profs was into sexual domination. Mind you, most of my professors were stodgy business guys who didn’t seem aware of anything beyond microeconomics. Clearly, I had chosen the wrong major.

  Gareth was shutting down the AV system when I stepped into the lecture hall, the glow from the screen casting interesting patterns across his face. The students left the room surprisingly quickly, leaving us alone.

  “Hi.” My heart pounded in my chest and my hands were damp. I don’t think I’d been more nervous about anything in my life, and that included the auction.

  Gareth instantly froze. I wasn’t sure if Connie or Stephen was going to give him a heads-up about my impending arrival, but clearly that hadn’t happened. He let out a short huff and finished turning off the computer. But once the power had finished cycling off, he didn’t move away from the podium.

  Shit, this wasn’t supposed to be how things went.

  I moved a bit further into the hall, casting a quick glance around to ensure we were in fact on our own. “I only ever took Introduction to Literature back in my first year. Is Silas Marner a good book?”

  “It’s about a man falsely accused of theft. He finds a child and raises her as his own. In the end his life is better for having taken her in.”

  “A little light reading then.” I chuckled. The story actually sounded interesting. “I should pick it up.”

  “Why are you here, Liz?”

  There was no malice in his words. Maybe a bit of frustration and a lot of confusion, but not anger. I took that as a good sign and crept a few steps closer.

  “You wear glasses.” They were the wire-frame ones that I always found sexy on men. “You didn’t have those on the other night.”

  “I wear contacts to the club.” Gareth tightened his grip on the podium. “Liz?”

  “I’ve been moping.”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “Moping?”

  “According to Connie, yes. It’s not something that I tend to do very often.”

  With a gentle tap against the side of the wood, Gareth stepped out from behind his barrier. “And why have you been moping?”

  “I missed you.”

  See, my plan of attack was to try to be as honest with what I wanted from him as I could. In the past my attempts to be subtle with the men in my life rarely panned out in my favor. And really, Gareth didn’t seem the type to appreciate anything less than the total truth.

  But when he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, I had the fleeting thought that my plan might be lacking. “We’ve only known each other one night.”

  Ah, but I’d been ready for that rebuttal. Sliding my ass onto the nearest desk, I crossed my legs. My choice of keeping on the skirt I’d worn to work was completely calculated. So was the lack of panties.

  “Yes, but you have to admit the circumstances were far from normal.” My nipples were still tender, especially when I tugged on them while I got myself off. I’d been doing that a lot since that night.

  Gareth took a step closer, but the distance between us was still vast. “You don’t know anything about me.”

  “I know. I’m not asking to go steady, just an opportunity to get to know you.” And here was where things were going to get challenging. “I really think we might…you know…get along.” I shrugged.

  “You do.” He took another step. “Or do you think no one else will be able to give you what you had the night at the auction? Because I can tell you right now that’s not true. There are many men, some far better than myself, who can take you to the places you need to be.”

  Shit, maybe he really didn’t want anything to do with me. I slipped to my feet but didn’t move far from the desk. “I know that.”

  “Then there’s no reason why you should feel obligated to chase after me.”

  “You think that’s what this is? Obligation?”

  “Liz, up until a week ago, you weren’t even certain you were a submissive. I opened your eyes to a new world. It’s not so unbelievable.”

  Was he right?

  Stepping closer, I tried to force myself to really look at the man in front of me. There wasn’t an inch of leather anywhere on his body. A pair of beige dress pants hugged his waist and I could only imagine what his ass looked like encased in cotton. The button-down dress shirt was open at the neck, giving me a tantalizing glimpse of the toned body beneath. In many ways, he looked nothing like the Dom who’d worked me into a frenzy.

  And then I looked into his eyes and there was no mistaking whom I was talking to. The vulnerability he’d tried to cover up, the few slips I’d only realized later I’d seen. If anything, Gareth was, in a strange way, laying himself out before me much as I’d done for him.

  I took another step closer. “Connie said your wife passed away.”

  He flinched. “Car accident. No one’s fault, just slippery roads.”

  “She was your sub, right?” His hands balled up at his sides, but he said nothing else. “You feel like you let her down. That you should have been able to do something to look after her, make things better.”

  “Did Stephen tell you that?” Gareth didn’t sound angry, more akin to exhausted.

  “No. I guess it’s pretty obvious that someone like you would be dying on the inside about this.”

  “Don’t pretend to know me, Liz. I get the impression you don’t really know yourself.”

  The barb hurt more than I was willing to let on. Instead, I decided to change tactics. Holding out my hand, I didn’t bother to wait for him to take it before I began speaking.

  “Hello. My name is Liz Phillips. I’m twenty-six and work as a project manager for the OnTel. I got the job as part of their new grad program, but I’ve been moving up in responsibility.”

  He didn’t move to take my hand. Gareth frowned, but his hands slowly started to relax by his sides.

  “I’ve only had three serious sexual relationships over the years. The last one was John. He’s the one I told you about who spanked me. I got dumped the next week after we’d tried. H
e most definitely wasn’t a top.”

  Gareth smirked.

  “I’m not sure about how serious a relationship I want right now. I work long hours and am still trying to figure out what all this means. I do want to find a man who might be willing to help me explore my submissive streak. And possibly go to the movies with me. I love horror films.”

  Gareth took a step closer. “Horror? Not romance?”

  “Horror or action. With lots of explosions. Or those really bad B movies where even the actors know things are over the top.”

  My arm was starting to shake now from the strain of keeping it held out straight. I was going to have to let it drop soon if he didn’t take it.

  “I talk a lot, though not during movies because that’s plain rude. I love pizza with olives, getting my ass spanked and learning new things. Who wrote Silas Marner again?”

  “George Eliot.” Gareth reached out and took my hand. “Nice to meet you, Liz.”

  His fingers were warm as they wrapped around mine. The squeeze of our hands together sent an immediate shiver through my body. No, it wasn’t just Gareth’s control or raw sexuality. I knew instinctively that I’d like him.

  “I haven’t done this in a while.” He stepped a bit closer but didn’t let go of his hold on me. “I’m not an easy person to get to know.”

  “That’s fine. I’m not asking to go steady.”

  “But you are asking for a relationship.”

  Connie was right, he really could be an idiot. “I’m asking for a chance to get to know you. I might discover you’re a jerk and want nothing more to do with you.”

  Gareth snorted and then started as if the noise surprised him. “I can be. An overbearing one if my late wife was to be believed.”

  Giving him a squeeze, I turned his hand over and cradled it in my palms. “I have an idea.”

  “You don’t give up easily, do you?”

  “Nope.” I smiled and for the first time that night began to relax. “Do you want to hear it?”

  “Fine.”

  “Why don’t we go for a coffee at the little shop here on campus? I remember them making a decent banana bread too. You can tell me a few things about your wife, how you met her and stuff. I’ll tell you about my first year rooming with Connie and how that insanity happened. Then if things go smoothly, we can see about another coffee on another day. Sound good?”