by Roz Lee
The anxiety twisting his gut eased a little at that news. It always came down to money. The Waves could have several young players for less than what they’d pay him for the two years remaining on his contract. They’d be better off to create a franchise player from scratch than to try to buy one outright.
“If they offer, I’ll have my agent take a look, but I have every intention of finishing my career the same way I started it—with the Mustangs.”
“I knew we could count on you to back us up. We don’t want to lose you, Todd, but we had to throw them something to get their attention.”
***
What she was doing was wrong. She should have told Todd about her lunch date with the Domme. He was her Master. He had every right to know what she did when they were apart. Not that he ran her life that completely. Back home, she ran her business without asking his permission for every little thing she did. Their Master/slave agreement encompassed their personal lives, not their professional ones. Which was the reason this meeting felt so wrong. Her dealings with Mistress Lola had nothing to do with her bakery and everything to do with her personal life.
“I should have asked Master’s permission to meet with you.”
The woman on the other side of the booth didn’t look anything like the whip-wielding Dominatrix who had marked Brooke’s body, allowing her to see her true self in one intense evening. Brooke doubted anyone who noticed them having lunch in the suburban sandwich shop would think twice about two ordinary looking women sharing a table. Everything appeared ordinary, but that was so far from the truth it was laughable.
“Yes, I realize that, but I’m grateful you didn’t. After the other night, I thought perhaps the two of us should talk, woman to woman, before we enter into another scene together.”
Brooke nodded, refusing to look at her stunningly beautiful companion. “We don’t have anything to talk about.” That was a lie, but she’d become a pro at denying what had happened that night. Her reaction to the woman across from her felt like a betrayal of her relationship with Todd. She’d given him everything, her love, her body, her complete submission to his will.
As if she hadn’t heard a word Brooke said, the woman spoke. “I put the decision on you, and I shouldn’t have. You’re Todd’s, not mine. I should have told him what was happening between us, and let him decide.”
Brooke’s hand shook as she held her glass of iced tea to her lips and drank. The cold liquid did nothing to steady her nerves. She glanced around, making sure no one was within hearing range—not that an eavesdropper would understand what was being said. Their conversation, thus far, sounded innocent enough. “I’m glad you didn’t.”
“Because he would have decided something different than you did?”
“No.” How could she say this? Even thinking it felt as if she was being disloyal to what she had with her Master. “I don’t want him to know.”
“You can’t control your desires, Brooke. They are what they are, and they aren’t going to go away because you will them to.”
“I know that, but wanting…is the same as cheating on him.” She risked a glance at her lunch date. Mistress Lola’s gaze held more understanding than Brooke expected.
“I don’t think he’d see it that way.” She paused. Her eyes narrowed as she considered what Brooke had said. “Unless…what you felt was more than desire. Is that it, Brooke?”
Oh, God. She felt sick to her stomach. If her Master ever found out how much she craved the kind of mastery this woman had given her…. She stared down at her untouched sandwich.
“I see.” The other woman’s voice was pitched low. “We do have a problem then, don’t we?”
Brooke nodded. The problem was all hers—one she would deal with. Once she and Todd returned to Dallas, the temptation would be over.
“I’m glad we had this time to talk,” Mistress Lola said. “I should have recognized your feelings went that deep, but I wasn’t looking to take you away from him.”
“I can’t leave him. I won’t. Not ever.” Brooke jerked her gaze back to the other woman. “I love him.”
“But I give you something he can’t.”
“Yes.” Admitting the secret she’d been holding inside her for days didn’t provide the relief she’d hoped it would. She still felt as if she might be ill. Whoever heard of a slave needing more than their Master could provide? She loved the occasional pain Todd inflicted. The spanking after their guests left had been more than perfect. It had been exactly what she’d needed at that time. But now that she’d experienced the deeper valleys to be explored…. “I need more.”
“More of what I gave you?”
“Yes. M….” She checked herself before she blurted out the honorific. “Todd gives me as much as he can, but I’m afraid he’ll never push me as far as you did.”
“I see.” Brooke thought the Domme actually did see, which eased her mind a little. “Yet he seemed pleased with what he saw.”
She meant the stripes on Brooke’s back. “Yes. He loves them. He was proud of the way I handled the situation.”
“So he isn’t opposed to the dosage, but if left to him, he’d be more conservative.”
If the situation hadn’t seemed as important as national security to her, she might have found their strange code language humorous. However, there was nothing funny about the predicament she was in. She was in love with Todd. She wanted to serve him completely. But Mistress Lola had shown her a level of play she never imagined she could endure, much less crave.
And she did crave it. Even though the marks on her back were still visible, she longed to feel the whip on her skin again. She longed to go to that deep, dark place in her mind where her need to submit felt pure and right.
Right. That was it, the feeling beckoning her back. In that special place in her mind, she wasn’t confused by her servitude. Her world was brilliant and perfect in its simplicity. She loved; therefore, she served. She fed off her Master’s love, drew strength from it.
“It was almost like being drunk but on his love. I would have done anything to please him. I did do things I’ve never done before.” She licked her lips, remembering the taste of the woman she spoke to. “It felt so pure at the time, but it wasn’t. Afterward, I wanted what you offered, but I was afraid accepting your…kindness…would have revealed too much to him.”
“You feel as if your needs somehow make what you have with him impure.”
“I know they do.”
“They don’t, Brooke. You are only human. You can’t stop feeling simply because you want to.”
“I don’t want to hurt him.”
“Neither do I. He loves you. I would never do anything to jeopardize that. You need to talk to him, Brooke. Tell him what you’ve told me. Think about what he’s done to keep you. Do you think there is anything he wouldn’t do to make you happy?”
“There isn’t anything I won’t do to make him happy.”
“Come on.” Mistress Lola gathered her half-eaten meal then stood. “There’s a park down the street. We can talk there.”
Brooke followed her, tossing her uneaten meal before trailing the other woman out of the restaurant. The park she spoke of was an oasis of green in the otherwise brown landscape. Scraggly pepper trees provided dappled shade for the unoccupied picnic tables and benches. As refreshing as the plot of ground was in the middle of the desert, there were no other people about.
The women settled at one of the tables, using the tabletop as a backrest. They had a sweeping view of the park, allowing them to see anyone who entered. “We can talk freely here.”
“I don’t know what else there is to say.” Even though they were in a public place, the fact that they were alone made their meeting seem more intimate, more forbidden to Brooke.
“There’s plenty to say, sub.”
Every cell in her body went on alert at the woman’s choice of address. They’d been careful in the restaurant, but here, it seemed caution was going to be thrown to the deser
t wind.
“The two of you have an appointment this weekend. According to our contract, Todd is still my sub. He will follow my orders or suffer the consequences. I could have him whip you. If I insisted, he wouldn’t spare you.”
She hated to think of her Master compelled to execute a scene he wasn’t comfortable with, no matter how much she welcomed the pain. “No. Please, Mistress, don’t force him.”
“You realize you have no say in this? Todd is your Master.”
“I know.”
“That brings us to the other issue—your desire for me, personally.”
The frank assessment of her feelings shocked Brooke. For some reason, she’d tied all her feelings for Mistress Lola up in her newfound need for a higher level of pain instead of seeing there were two issues in play. That she enjoyed eating pussy and wanted this woman to return the favor was a startling revelation. At the time, she’d performed the act on Mistress Lola because watching her do so would please her Master, but when the tables were turned, she’d balked. Not because she didn’t want to take the woman up on her offer, but because she did. Her pussy ached to feel Mistress Lola’s lips and tongue stroking her, cleansing her still-throbbing tissues. Then she’d thought of her Master and realized her desire was an adulteration of their relationship.
“I shouldn’t have let you make the decision the other night. That was my mistake. Todd was so focused on caring for your back he didn’t pick up on your other needs. I should have pointed them out to him. He would have held you while I sucked your pussy clean then we wouldn’t be in this situation. Everything would be out in the open.”
“It was my responsibility to tell him.” She’d almost told him the night before when she told Carrie and Jason how she came to have a pattern of stripes on her backside. But she’d stopped short of the aftercare part of the story. Bringing up her desire for a woman in the presence of friends would have made the revelation that much more difficult for her Master. “Besides, I’m not sure where the desire came from. It might have been part of the natural bonding process after such an intense scene. Perhaps I would have felt that way about anyone who applied the whip to me as thoroughly as you did.”
“It was more than the whipping.”
Brooke tilted her face up to catch the rays of sunshine filtering through the canopy of thin leaves overhead. She closed her eyes, willing the warmth to seep in and dispel the chill of uncertainty in her bones. “Maybe.”
“There’s no maybe about it. We connected. Your Master is going to notice. Are you prepared for when he does?”
She shivered in the sun. “No. I don’t want to lose him, Mistress.”
“The last thing I want to do is cause a rift between the two of you, but once he sees what’s right under his nose, denying it will only make the situation worse.”
“I know. I won’t lie to him if he asks.”
With a resigned sigh, her companion stood. “That’s all I’m asking, sub. Remember, your Master loves you. His decisions might seem harsh, even cruel, but he has your best interest at heart.”
***
Todd was tired down to his bones. Every minute he was on the field these last few days, he felt as if he were a rookie again, proving to himself and to the team he was equal to the job. Couple his attempts to turn back time with Jason’s news, and the conversation with Doyle Walker earlier in the week, and his mind was anywhere but on playing submissive to Mistress Lola. But fatigue wasn’t an excuse to miss an appointment with his trainer.
There was more on the line these days than keeping his place on the field. His relationship with Brooke still tottered on the edge of an abyss filled with unknowns. He had no intention of accepting a trade, even if it meant picking splinters out of his ass until his contract ran out, and he could retire. But if he couldn’t cement this thing with Brooke, then perhaps moving to another city would be the right thing to do.
Just like his sessions with Mistress Lola were the right thing to do. He’d learned more than he ever expected by assuming the role of a sub. Watching his slave with the other woman was a bit of a revelation in itself. Remembering Brooke going down on Mistress Lola, bringing the powerful Domme to orgasm, was enough to make him hard. And he couldn’t get that scene out of his head any more than he could forget Brooke lying face down on the floor, accepting a whipping he would have cowered from.
There were layers to his slave he never knew existed. No points for him as her Master. But he recognized his shortcomings in that realm and had taken steps to rectify the situation.
Watching Brooke disrobe in the small dressing room at Mistress Lola’s establishment tonight, he wished peeling her layers off was as easy as removing her clothes. But no one ever said being a Dom, a Master, was easy.
Brooke turned to place her neatly folded garments in the locker provided for the Mistress’ visiting playmates, giving Todd an excellent view of her backside. It had been a week since the whipping. The marks had faded considerably, but they were still there. Some had bruised, going through the colorful phases of such things in the interim. She’d been stoic throughout, even showing her body to their friends as regally as any royal sporting the crown jewels.
He couldn’t imagine losing her, but, thankfully, he didn’t have to make a decision unless an offer was made. Brooke couldn’t leave the business she’d worked so hard to build in Dallas, and he wouldn’t ask her to. I do have a choice. All I have to do is say no. They can’t make the trade without my consent. But still, he’d agreed to listen to an offer if one was made. I’ll say no.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“You’re amazing,” he said, taking Brooke into his arms when she faced him. He kissed her, taking her lips in a blaze of passion she returned in equal measure. “I want to fuck you, slave. I want to use your body like there’s no tomorrow.”
“My body is yours to command, Master.”
He kissed her again, recognizing the desperation underlying the move. Ever since their last session with Mistress Lola, he’d felt as if Brooke was slipping away from him. With the possibility of a trade hanging over his head, the thin bond holding them together seemed more fragile than ever. “I don’t think I can stand by and watch you submit to another. Not tonight. I need you too much.”
“As you wish, Master.”
She followed him out to the main room where the Domme awaited them. This evening, the woman had chosen a red corset that elevated her breasts, flaring out over her hips in perfect contrast to the black garter belt that held up red silk stockings while framing her bare pussy. Her hair was pulled into a high ponytail, its length laced tight with a thin leather strips. The pinpoint heels on her stilettos clicked on the concrete floor as she circled the two of them like a lioness deciding which of the innocent bunnies to feed to her cubs first.
“There’s been a change of plans, Mistress.” His uninvited comment would undoubtedly earn him a punishment, but the way he figured it, he was paying for the woman’s time. She’d damn well listen to what he had to say, or he’d take his toys and leave. He was tempted to do that anyway. Having Brooke all to himself tonight sounded pretty good.
“Oh?” She came to a stop in front of him. “You’re fortunate I haven’t decided what to do with you tonight. So tell me, what would you like to see happen?”
He didn’t give a rat’s ass why she’d agreed to listen. It only mattered that she did. “My slave isn’t fully recovered from her last session with you. I intend to fuck her until she can’t walk on her own.”
Her attention shifted to Brooke. “Turn around, girl. Let me see your back.”
After seeking his approval, his slave spun in place, lifting her hair to one side. Mistress Lola examined her closely.
“She’s healing nicely, but I agree. It’s too soon for a repeat performance even though I’m sure she would welcome another trip into deep subspace.”
With the tip of his index finger, he traced one long, pale line extending from Brooke’s left shoulder to just above her right buttoc
k. “She was pretty deep last time. It was beautiful to see. It’s been a week, and the reminders still haven’t faded. Do you think she wants to go there again?”
Mistress Lola traced a mark that mirrored the one he followed. “Yes, I think she needs it in order to remain in touch with her deepest feelings and desires. She’s a strong woman, Master Todd. In order to function in the outside world, she buries her true nature way down inside her. She shows it to you, but when a sub looks as deep as she did last time, the things she finds there can change her.”
“What are you saying?”
“That she’s a different person since her first voyage into deep subspace. I think there might be more avenues to explore with her than there were before.”
He studied Brooke’s back, letting the fading lines speak to him. Memories of the night she’d received them played over in his mind. She’d done things he never thought she would do. He could still feel her mouth on his ass, see her face between Mistress Lola’s legs. Perhaps the whipping had unlocked levels of Brooke’s sensuality she’d previously balked at expressing.
“I never want to hold her back.”
“You aren’t, Sir. There’s no need for her to delve that deep into her psyche too often. But when you do take her there, you’d be a fool not to explore all she learns about herself.”
“You’ve given this some thought.”
“I have. Put yourself and your slave in my hands again tonight. I swear I will not cause her any undue pain.”
“Meaning?”
“No whipping. Nothing more than something to help her focus.” Her hand trailed to Brooke’s ass, still pink from the spanking he’d given her. “I see you’ve done a little of that recently.”
“That was purely selfish. I wanted to see my handprints on her ass when I fucked her.”
She nodded her understanding. “Submit to me, Todd. Allow me to use you and your slave tonight. I promise you won’t regret it.”