by Vonna Harper
She tried not to wonder whether Master would watch today’s proceedings, but the question surfaced nonetheless. The ordeal ahead of her would be easier without him. At the same time, she couldn’t imagine having him out of her life.
“What about you?” the slave who’d been talking asked. “Did any of the potential buyers appeal to you?”
A month ago she would never have believed she’d hear such a question. Now it was part of her reality.
“None. I can’t do this. I can’t.”
The other slave patted her on the shoulder. “You don’t have a choice. Make the best of it. That’s what I’m going to do. Besides, there are benefits.”
She didn’t need to see the slave run her hand between her legs to know what she was getting at. However, despite her conditioning, sex wouldn’t be enough for her.
Someday, somehow, she’d escape.
The large door opened and two men dressed all in black walked in. She’d thought the slaves would be forced to wear restraints like last night, but the men’s hands were empty.
“Here’s the drill,” the shorter one said. “You’re going to enter the auction room one at a time. This”—he grabbed the leash of the woman closest to him—“hopefully will be for show. Conduct yourselves as proud Carnal graduates.”
That was all the men were going to say? No lectures or warnings? As they left with the woman whose leash the one had picked up, she acknowledged that nothing more had been needed. Regardless of how long each woman had been in training, she wouldn’t be here if she wasn’t deemed ready. Instead of wondering what was going on in the next room, her thoughts kept returning to a simple fact. Master had changed her from a woman who took self-determination for granted into one who’d made her peace with her new reality. Much as she’d regret never seeing him again, and she would, her body craved this sensual journey. She’d become a slave, not just to a man but to her primal needs as well.
One after another, the other women departed with the black-clad handlers until just two of them remained. By then her companion was shaking, so she’d sat cross-legged on the cement floor to keep from falling. The woman’s sex was in plain view, further proof of what the time at Carnal had accomplished.
As for Marina, she just wanted today to be over.
The other woman pulled her knees against her when the door opened. However, instead of the two men, Master filled the space.
Master!
“Come with me.” He indicated the door she’d come through so long ago.
Barely believing this was happening, she obeyed, her feet making faint slapping sounds and the leash dangling between her breasts. She wasn’t dreaming, hadn’t imagined this was happening. Master led the way down the corridor. Instead of returning her to her room, however, he turned left. Despite her confusion, she vowed to wait for him to explain. Last night he’d said many things. Today was different—but in how many ways?
He opened yet another door then stepped aside so she could go in first. This was his space. Several football posters had been taped to the walls. More telling, it smelled like him. This was where he slept, dreamed, thought.
Leaving the door open, he walked over to the closet, opened it and took out a familiar blue blouse. She’d worn it a few times when she’d had occasion to look professional. The white slacks he dropped on his queen-size bed were nearly new, since she usually had to worry about keeping her clothes clean. He indicated the oversized gym bag next to the slacks. “Some of your underwear’s in there. Go on. Put them on.”
Silent, she reached into the bag and pulled out items she’d nearly forgotten about. She selected white panties and a bra and dressed. Her mind all but shut down. All she knew was she wasn’t ready for that to change.
Underwear was unfamiliar. Once she’d slipped into the slacks, however, she could hardly wait to cover herself with the protection the blouse provided. She’d always felt more feminine when she wore this outfit, but never as much as she did today.
“There,” he said. “Done and done.” Staring at her, he ran his hand through his hair. “You look amazing.”
He’d never seen her with makeup on and with her hair styled, but she sensed that wasn’t all he was talking about. Something about being dressed resurrected her sense of confidence. Ignoring the collar and leash that remained as a reminder of everything she’d been through, she sat on the side of Master’s bed. His scent eased around and through her.
He sat in a recliner. “You aren’t going to ask are you? You’re waiting for me to explain.”
“Yes.”
“Good.” He nodded. “Damn good. This is the spark I saw in you last night, the one the past month couldn’t kill.”
“Are you sorry? Maybe you wanted a mouse, not a woman?”
“No. I’d never want—look, I don’t want to draw this out. There’s been a change of plans. Obviously you aren’t going to be sold.”
Because someone had already bought her?
No, she wouldn’t ask. He’d brought her here. Let him face the consequences of his action. All she had to do was face a future without her first owner.
He sighed. “I don’t know what’s so hard about saying this except— Marina, I spent the morning buying your freedom.”
Her heart slammed against her chest wall. “You…”
“I don’t think this has ever been done at Carnal. At least I’m guessing that’s why it took so long.”
“I’m free?”
He shrugged. “Did you hear what I said? I paid what a new owner would.”
“Then you— I belong to you?”
“It’s more complicated than that.”
What did he mean? Unable to remain seated, she got up and stumbled over to his window. A wide stretch of ocean and shore took her back to last night.
“You get to see this whenever you want?” she asked, with her back to him.
“Yes. Every time I do, I’m reminded of how much you’d enjoy seeing it. Look at me, please.”
Please? She’d nearly forgotten the word existed. He’d swiveled the chair around so he was facing her.
“I don’t belong here,” he said. “I kept telling myself the feeling would go away, that the job’s perks would make up for the downside, but it didn’t.”
“What downside?”
“If you don’t know the answer it’s because I did a damn good job of keeping what I was going through to myself. Feeling as if I owned you, knowing I could do whatever I wanted to your body—those are powerful emotions.” He shrugged. “There’s a Dom inside me all right. I don’t blame you for thinking of me as a bastard. Even if I wanted to, there’s nothing I can do about that.”
“You aren’t a bastard,” she whispered. “Maybe that’s how I saw you at first, but no longer.”
He didn’t look convinced. “There are some things I need you to understand. I’m making as much of a break from Carnal as possible, which should mean I’ve also severed my ties with you, but you can’t just walk out of here.”
Her heart beat painfully.
“In exchange for taking you out of the system, I had to promise to make sure you don’t tell the cops.” He nodded at the bed. “Sit down. The explanation is going to take a while.”
She sank onto the bed. After maneuvering the chair back around, he explained that Carnal’s influence reached into areas of law enforcement, the legal system, politicians. Not all police, lawyers, and politicians were dirty, but key figures were Carnal customers.
“This is how it was explained to me,” he finished. “If you want to go on living, keep a low profile. Otherwise you’ll disappear. Not might but will.”
Her throat dried. “I understand.”
“Do you?” He leaned forward. “You’re going to be watched.”
“Can—” She had to refill her lungs before she could continue. “Will I be able to go back to being a jockey?”
He massaged his temples with such force she was afraid he’d hurt himself. “That’s what you want?�
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She tried to picture herself on horseback but couldn’t get the image to form. Maybe later, once she’d had time to process what she’d just heard. Was she free or wasn’t she? Maybe she belonged to him.
“I don’t know what I want. It’s been so long since that’s been an option. What about going back to my place?”
“And risk running into those who told Carnal about you? Not a good idea.”
“Then my place…”
“Will have to be sold. Yes.”
Yes. What a simple word, one that could be full of layers. “Why are you doing this?”
His already sober expression became even more so. “I thought you’d ask how I accomplished what I did.”
“It cost you a lot of money.”
Watching him nod opened something up inside her. Until now, she’d been trying to wrap her mind around one word at a time, but that no longer mattered as much as what was going on inside him. From the first time she’d seen him, she’d thought of little except his impact on her. That hadn’t left much time for trying to crawl inside his mind, or wanting to.
Learning about his father’s impact on the man he’d become and his love of horses had taken her into his world, but it hadn’t been enough.
After planting her legs under her, she pushed herself upright. Walking over to him both frightened and thrilled her. When she was close enough to touch him, she sank to her knees before him and placed her hands on his thighs.
“Why?” she repeated.
He stiffened but didn’t push her hands off him. “It came down to a matter of facing myself in the mirror. Controlling you, making you do and experience whatever I wanted—let’s just say I have dominant tendencies. I want to be the one in charge, to call the shots, but that’s a hell of a way to go through life. I’d been a bastard long enough.”
“You aren’t—”
“Look, I’m not going to apologize for what I did. I got off on a lot of it.”
She resisted ducking her head. “Just as I got off being submissive to you.”
“You really—”
“Yes.”
He pressed his fingers against his upper lip. “Yes? I didn’t expect you to say that. Maybe that’s because I’ve been hung up on myself.”
Determined to keep the conversation going, she nodded. “In what way?”
“More than I want to think about. Self-analysis can be damn time-consuming. Example, last night when I was telling you about my parents, something occurred to me. My old man kept my mother under his thumb. I swore I’d never be like him, but I was.”
“No,” she insisted. “What goes on between your parents is hardly the same as—you know. She could have left.”
“Maybe once. Not anymore. She has no spirit.”
“Does he beat her?”
“No, but he puts her down. He says he’s stuck driving trucks until they put him in a grave because she can’t support herself.” He sighed. “That’s how he saw me, a burden.”
Say what you’re thinking. “So you’re separating both of us from Carnal because you needed to prove to yourself that our relationship isn’t like your parents’?”
He closed his eyes. “That’s deep. Look, I’ve gone back and forth about this, weighing what I want against what you deserve.” He took a long breath. “Maybe what I need to say is that, after today, we don’t have a relationship.”
Is that what I want? “What about you?” Talking made her throat hurt. “What are you going to do?”
“You care? Yeah, you do or you wouldn’t have asked. Maybe I’ll buy some acreage and put horses that need homes on it.”
If he could do that, he was even wealthier than she’d thought. “That’s beautiful,” she whispered. When he opened his eyes, she lowered her head. “I had a similar dream for after I retired from racing. I just lacked the funds.”
“Not had,” he muttered. “It doesn’t have to be past tense. Just because I bought your way out of Carnal doesn’t mean you belong to me. I’ve had enough of being selfish. It’s your turn.”
“My turn for what?”
“Doing what you want, at least as much as possible.” His lungs slowly expanded. “I’ve said this before but have to again. I’d like nothing better than to keep that collar on you, but it isn’t my decision to make.”
“You’re saying it’s mine?”
He stared at her neck. “Yeah. Like I said, I’ve been a bastard long enough.”
“You’re not. Damn it, you aren’t.” Giving weight to her outburst, she spread his legs and kissed the mound she knew so well. Administering to his cock, even with denim between them, transported her back into a familiar world.
“Do you know what you’re doing?” he asked.
She responded by kissing his cock again. Shuddering, he stretched his fingers over her head. Today might never completely sort itself out for her, but she didn’t care. Being with Tray had changed her, taken her out of the cocoon she’d been living in for long and shown her what it meant to be a sexual creature. She reveled in her new self. Couldn’t imagine living without it.
Didn’t want to live without him.
“Master, I—”
He silenced her with a hand over her mouth. “Don’t call me that anymore.”
“What if I want to?”
“You can’t—”
“Yes, I can and do. Master, you said a part of you still wants your collar around my neck, right?”
“Yeah.” He drew out the word. “Damn it, I do.”
She fingered the familiar band. “Don’t remove it, please. And don’t send me away.”
“Send? I’m handing you freedom.”
The clothes that had felt so strange when she’d put them on had no place in this conversation, but she couldn’t think how to change that until she’d said and done what she needed to. She pressed the palm of her right hand against his cock. He was becoming even more erect.
“This is what I want,” she told him. “You in my world.”
He groaned. “You’d better mean it, because I want you so damn bad I might not be able to stop.”
“Don’t stop, Master, please.”
Less than a minute later they lay side by side on his luxurious bed. He’d removed her clothes, although ripped was a more accurate description. She’d pulled off his shirt, then stood with her head bowed and the leash brushing her naked body while he’d finished stripping himself.
“There’s a lot to be decided,” he said as he moved her arms out to her sides. Her legs were already bent and spread, her sex gaping in invitation. “Plans we have to make.”
“Yes, Master.” Much as she needed to embrace him, she’d remain splayed for his pleasure. In her submission, she’d find joy.
He crouched on his knees between her legs and drew her onto his thighs. When her pussy was inches from his erection, he lightly ran a blunt fingernail over her labia. A long moan erupted from her throat.
“You’ll race,” he said. “That’s your domain and what brings you joy.”
“Yes, Master.”
“At night you’ll come to me. Do what I tell you to.”
He hadn’t said it, but she understood. The master–slave relationship would continue only as long as they both wanted it.
When he pushed her onto him, she tightened her inner muscles around the man she’d given her body and more to.
Plans and decisions could wait.
This fever couldn’t.
Also available from Totally Bound Publishing:
The Blackened Window: Wrecked
Corrine A. Silver
Excerpt
Chapter One
At the beginning of my second year of medical school, I was ambivalent, at best. Sometimes I felt right on the edge of something amazing, but mostly, it felt like waiting for the real thing to happen. It didn’t help that I wasn’t hooked in and invested the way most of the Ivy League overachievers were.
My mentor had told me the first year was the most traumat
ic. He didn’t know shit. It was the second year that fucked my world up, and it wasn’t school. It wasn’t medicine. It was her. She nearly destroyed me.
* * * *
“Hey, Xander! Hold on a second.”
I paused, turning to see Dr. Sanderson waving to flag me down before I left for the day. He taught Anatomy to the first years—cadavers, dissection, the whole bit.
“Yeah? Hi, Dr. Sanderson.” I waited, noticing Stacy waiting down the hall, watching me. The world of history I shared with Stacy flashed through my head and came back to what it always did with her, the way we’d nearly destroyed each other.
She doesn’t fucking get it.
Dr. Sanderson shook my hand as he spoke, “Xander, would you be interested in tutoring anatomy? We’re short a tutor and you were top of your class. It would really help us and the first years, and we could pay you. I mean, it’s just something like nine or ten bucks an hour, but still… Students can usually use it, right?”
I didn’t need the money and besides, I had a job at the Window anytime I wanted it. That paid better than ten bucks an hour, and you couldn’t beat the perks… Well, actually you could. Literally. But I was bored and needed something more to fill my time. Maybe I’d shake off some ennui if I got a little more involved, met more people. Something other than my simple routine.
“Sure. I could do Tuesday nights.” I worked out a few times a week and needed to study some too, I guessed. Tuesdays seemed like as good a night as any.
“Great! I’ll find you tomorrow with the paperwork. I usually let them get a little freaked out before having the tutors start. Usually the second week.”
“Cool. Just at the library, though. I don’t really want to be in the cadaver lab if I don’t have to be. I’m still having flashbacks of the smell.” I cracked a smile at him. He smiled and slapped me on the back as he turned to his office. I stretched my neck as I turned, knowing Stacy would still be there. I could feel her dark little flame of emptiness trying to pull me into her.