by Ava Sinclair
The contract we signed was no more binding than a thread. It was just a structure meant to bolster up our respective insecurities. If I did go back, if we gave this a try, we’d have to have a framework that went beyond sex. But the sex would still be important. It can’t make a relationship, but it sure can break it. It broke his relationship with Lydia. Compatibility is everything. We both have specific needs that will have to be met. If I return, my voice will be heard.
There’s no wind along the lake today. The weather is so nice. My stride is fluid, and with each burst of energy my head clears a little more. I ask myself hard questions as I run. Do I deserve to be happy? Yes. Does being happy involve risk? Yes? I wanted a master. I have created my own for so long—school, work, running. But I had hidden masters in the parents I no longer speak to. Their coldness has frozen me, has kept me locked in fear of failing. But how can I fail if I don’t try? And how can I try if I remain afraid? It’s time to be brave. It’s time to take a chance. Yes, he’s flawed, but so am I. I know now what I must do.
Chapter Thirteen
He didn’t change the security code. I would have, but he didn’t. He didn’t change the security code, so I was able to get in.
I hear the door click. I hear his footfalls, so familiar. I hear him walk through the house, click on CNN. I hear him empty his pockets of his keys and his wallet and his change. He puts them in a leather tray on his bedside table. Very tidy.
For someone I don’t know as well as I should, some things I’m aware of, like his routine. Next, he’ll go to his closet, take off his jacket, and select something more comfortable to wear. I leave the bathroom where I’ve been hiding. I’m holding his electric toothbrush. He doesn’t hear me pad across the floor. I press it into his back just as I say, “Don’t move a muscle.”
He startles, then stops. He starts to look back. “Keep your eyes straight ahead,” I say. I hold my breath. Will he allow this? Will he allow the tables to be turned?
“I’ve pushed the secret alarm,” he says.
“Bullshit,” I say huskily. I’m speaking into his ear, standing on tiptoes to do it. “I’ve cased your place for a week. I know where the silent alarm buttons are, and there’s not one near the closet.”
I push the end of the brush against his back. “I’m armed, so don’t even think of doing anything other than what I say.”
He cuts his eyes back, but not enough to see me. “What are you going to do?” he asks.
“That depends on you,” I say. “Have you been bad?”
He goes quiet. “Yes,” he says. “I did something very hurtful to someone who deserved better. But if you’re here to punish me, know that the fear of losing her is worse than anything you could ever do.”
I feel a lump in my throat. I put my forehead against his back and exhale, softly, into his shirt. Then I compose myself.
“I chose this neighborhood because there’s a lot of bad boys who live in places like this. They have everything, and think they can have anyone. But it doesn’t work that way, does it?”
I feel tension fill his body. “No.”
“They’re bad boys,” I say. “One bad relationship and they can’t pick up their pride and move on. So they lock themselves away and use girls like fuck toys. I bet you’ve done that, haven’t you?”
“Yes,” he says. “Then I met the perfect one.”
“Go over to the bed,” I say. I twist his shirt, staying behind him as I walk him over to the bed. I turn him around, push him down backwards, straddle him. I toss the toothbrush onto the floor.
“Hello, Sloane,” he says, looking into my eyes as I lean down to take his face between my hands.
“Hello, Liam,” I reply.
“So now what?” he asks.
“I’m going to have my way with you,” I say. “But first, we’re going to agree to a few things. I need you. I love you. Do you love me?”
Are there tears in his eyes? They’re glittering, but his voice is deep with emotion. “More than anything,” he says.
“Good,” I reply. “Because I fucking love you, too. And there’s a lot about our relationship I don’t want to change. For instance, I still need a dominant. I need my Mr. M. So if you’re still willing…”
“God, yes,” he says.
“But I also need honesty. I want to know the man I obey. I want to see him strong, but I also want to see him weak. I want to see him as a dominant, but I also want to see him as a human. I want to be human with him. I want us to succeed, but I also want us to fail and learn how to fix things when we do.”
I fall quiet. I put my forehead to his. His breath is ragged. I inhale it as he exhales.
“My love,” I say. “Do you think we can make it?”
“Absolutely,” he says.
I believe him. And I need him. I need him inside me. I sit back, my hands shaking again as I fumble with his belt buckle. I undo his pants, lower his zipper. His cock is so hard I can barely get it out of his pants. It springs up like a flagpole and I hike up my skirt, push the crotch of my panties aside, and sink down on him in one sudden move. We both cry out, and he’s sitting up, holding me, his cock plunging in and out of me as I jog up and down in a frenzy.
Holy fucking lord, but I love this man. His hands are everywhere, squeezing my ass, ripping my shirt so he can get at my nipple. I feel like we’re separate parts of a whole. Why did it take so long for me to give myself to someone so completely?
“I’m going to come!” I cry.
“Not yet,” he growls, and I remember. Oh, god. I remember. He’s still in control, and I’m loving it.
“Now,” he says, and we come together. And it is perfect. We are perfect.
The End
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More Stormy Night Books by Ava Sinclair
The Marshal’s Little Girl
When a young woman calling herself Wilhelmina James shows up at his town’s horse auction unescorted with a lot of sass and a lot of cash, Gage Chandler instantly gets a bad feeling about her. He’s about to blow the small town of Red Horse Gulch to join the US Marshal’s office, and this mysterious visitor is a headache he doesn’t need. After he agrees to check out the pretty blonde stranger to appease a local rancher left angry at being outbid, what Gage finds out about Wilhelmina quickly confirms that she is up to no good. But when she gives him the slip and goes on the run it changes both of their lives forever.
Once he catches up with the little firebrand, it isn’t long before she is over his knee for a hard spanking. As the sexual tension between marshal and outlaw reaches a fever pitch, Gage finds that Wilhelmina’s deep need for submission meshes with his own buried desire to completely dominate a woman, and soon enough he has taken her as much more than just his prisoner.
But Gage soon learns that his captive has a secret. Wilhelmina doesn’t just want to be his woman; she wants to be his little girl. She needs his love, his care, and his firm hand applied to her bare bottom when she is naughty. Though Gage is ready to oblige, the west is a harsh and dangerous place for a woman, even with a hardened lawman like him by her side. Can he keep Wilhelmina safe, or will the shadow of her past prove impossible to escape?
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The Highlander’s Little Lass
As the daughter of a powerful highland laird, Glynis McLeod should have made a fine wife for any Scots
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The Doctor’s Little Ward
After the death of her deeply indebted father, nineteen-year-old Abigail Barrow faces a hard future in the workhouses of nineteenth-century London. Her only hope lies in a marriage to Dr. Simon Abbott, a man whose life her father once saved while they both served in Her Majesty’s Navy. But with no education and no dowry, she can hardly expect the esteemed doctor to agree to the match, especially when her sharp tongue earns her a trip over his knee for a humiliating bare-bottom spanking during their very first meeting.
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Big Beautiful Little
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Her Highland Guardian
As a modern-minded woman in the year 2657, Dr. Mary Malone is less than thrilled with the task of documenting the domestic life of a married couple in the eighteenth-century Scottish Highlands. But though she is appalled by the fact that men in that barely civilized era were known to take it upon themselves to discipline their wives—with a firm hand or a leather strap applied to the bare bottom, no less—she is a historian who takes her duties seriously, even when they involve travelling through time to a bygone age.
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