by Ann Jacobs
* * * * *
Funny. Now that she’d accepted Trace as her Master, his slightest touch had her tingling with anticipation. Elle closed her eyes as they snuggled on the couch in the den and mentally visualized the three possibilities he’d suggested as places on his ranch he’d like for them to make their marriage vows.
She loved them all. The pasture beside the creek was her sentimental favorite. She couldn’t help feeling, though, that it was their own private spot, too sacred to open to all their friends and family. Besides, even though Trace assured her it could be done, she didn’t think a lot of their guests would appreciate a reception served from a chuck wagon. She ran her nails along his forearm, enjoying the tactile sensations as she considered the other options.
Although the lawn in front of his sprawling ranch house was flat and perfectly manicured, ideal for setting up chairs and a massive white tent, there was something cliché about getting married in a setting much like they’d seen at estate-like, suburban San Antonio homes like Kurt and Shelly’s—or Lynn and Mark’s. No, Elle wanted something different, something she and Trace could remember for a lifetime as having been uniquely theirs.
“The garden behind the pool.” Trace had laughed when he showed it to her, and at first Elle laughed, too. Fenced with delicate wrought iron topping a six-foot brick wall, it was behind the house, out of sight of the pool area. Trace told her it had once been a formal-style garden that had been allowed to go back to nature sometime before he and Lynn were born. Old-fashioned roses clung to the wall, a riot of waxy green leaves and delicate pink flowers whose tendrils curled around and tumbled over carcasses of what used to be boxwood hedges. Elle imagined them as they used to be before years of neglect had taken their toll.
“You’ve got to be kidding.” The warmth of Trace’s hand as he grasped hers and brought it to his lips did a lot toward taking the edge off his reaction.
“Not at all.” Elle shuddered a little when he nipped at her knuckles. “Just imagine us getting married underneath that huge wisteria vine in the corner, with the guests sitting on benches in the center of the garden.”
“You want our guests to watch us get married while they sit in the middle of that bramble of weeds and runaway rosebushes?”
Elle couldn’t help laughing. “Of course not. I was sort of imagining we’d have the place cleaned up. Can’t you imagine it, minus all the dead stuff and weeds, with the climbing roses trimmed into submission? We could always plant some colorful flowers to give the garden a festive look.”
When she opened her eyes and looked up at him he didn’t look entirely convinced, despite the wry grin on his handsome face. “If you say so, sweetheart. I’m not entirely sure I want to wait to marry you until we can turn that eyesore into a showplace.”
“Four months? Is that too long?” She imagined getting married in April, when nature would be transitioning from winter to spring.
Trace lowered his head and nibbled the sensitive flesh along her shoulder while he loosened her shirt and freed one breast. “I guess not. But I don’t see how that garden is going to suddenly look great after forty or more years of neglect.” He drew one of her nipples between his lips and flailed it with his tongue.
Then he pulled back and looked her in the eye. “Sorry, sweetheart. If you want that eyesore turned into a fit scene for our wedding four months from now, I’ll make it happen. As long as I don’t have to wait all that time to have you in my bed every night. It’s not that long a drive to the hospital from here, and I’ll let you use the Jaguar. I can take one of the ranch trucks if I need to go somewhere while you’re at work.”
“All right.” She wanted his mouth on her, his cock invading her. What was it that suddenly had her reacting to every subtle bit of his gentle foreplay now? She hadn’t earlier, before he’d shown her he had another side, a dominant one that allowed her no choice but to follow a Master’s command. Elle didn’t know, but her body apparently did, because she felt herself getting wet and swollen between her legs, ready for whatever Trace might have in mind. With every wet, hot stroke of his tongue on her nipple, each glide of his hands along her aroused body, she wanted him more. “Master, may I touch you, too?”
He bit her, not hard enough to hurt but more than enough to rouse her senses to a fever pitch. “Oh yeah, you can touch me anytime.” Then he pulled away long enough to shed his boots and jeans and undress her without his usual finesse.
“Do you like taking it here?” He rimmed her asshole with a finger then worked it slowly inside. “You seemed to, last night.”
“I…” Just like last night, answering the question directly embarrassed her. For just a moment, she almost slipped back into what she’d done before, denying what she wanted so that he wouldn’t think she was that kind of girl. Trace might not know a lot directly about what went on in BDSM dungeons, but he’d shown a keen interest in learning what pleasures she’d discovered there, and he had a natural skill at being a Dominant. She’d be a fool to deny herself. She was going to have all the pleasures of a BDSM dungeon with her future husband, even if they never set foot in one.
She’d been right to tell him. There was no place for lies or evasions between them. “Yes, Master, I like it if it gives you pleasure. Do you want to put your huge, hard cock up my ass again?”
“God, yes, but I don’t want to hurt you.” Tentatively, he delved a little deeper with his finger and made her let out a little moan. How could she ever have thought he was anything but a wonderful lover? “We’ll take it slow and easy then. Kneel on the floor and rest your gorgeous body on the couch.”
Nothing could have stopped her from obeying. Her heart pounded in her chest when he reached in his desk drawer and pulled out some lube, a wrapped condom and a large, thick dildo. After donning the condom, he strapped on the dildo behind his own throbbing tool and lubricated both with slick, transparent gel. “This is supposed to make you hot,” he told her as he knelt behind her and packed more of the stuff in her swollen pussy—and her tight, yearning ass.
Hot? Elle was burning from the inside out. Trace couldn’t have known she’d been aroused the entire time they’d been searching for wedding sites and talking about guest lists and receptions. Or had he known? Had he read her arousal at his slightest touch?
Apparently, because he was wasting no time now. Holding her hips steady, he seated the dildo in her pussy slowly, as he entered her ass. She felt full. So full. So completely taken, mastered. “I love you so much,” she told him between moans of pleasure-pain. Ecstasy.
“I love you, too.” Trace moved slowly, determined to show her just how much by holding back his own racing need. “Your ass is so tight and hot, it’s all I can do to hold back.”
“Don’t, then.” When he’d have slowed the pace even more, Elle pushed back into him, taking all his length, clasping him with her inner muscles, enslaving him as much as he’d mastered her.
“Come, now,” he gasped. “Can’t hold back. Sorry.”
“Oh, God yes.”
He felt the tremors through the dildo, the tension that flowed through her flesh to his. As he felt the spasms, the spurts of his hot seed, he collapsed over her back. His last conscious thought was that she had the softest skin he’d ever felt.
Epilogue
The following April, at the ranch
Four months later, as Elle walked down the aisle, she was acutely conscious of Trace’s gaze scorching her skin. He wanted her now—she could tell from the tight set of his lips, the bald yearning in his deep brown eyes. God but she wanted him, too, as if they hadn’t made love just this morning. She couldn’t understand what it was about him that kept her hot all the time. Hotter than any club Dom had ever made her…even though he’d never chained her to a cross or made her cringe in pain before giving her release. Maybe because her heart and soul were as tied to him as her body.
That made her recall the mantra he’d found at MySpace.com, the one he’d told her about that had inspired his journey i
nto the world of Dominance and submission.
“All my life I’ve had to lead others, but in sex I have to have a leader. I need a man to take control of my body and my senses to overcome my inhibitions, and make me find pleasure in the acts my mother taught me were horribly wrong.
I want a Dom who understands what I need and knows what it takes to bring me along, a Dom who loves me and who wants to give me pleasure.
“A gentle Dom who’ll kiss away the bruises from his lash, who’ll support me in daylight as well as during the long nights in his bed. I want a man who loves me and fulfills my every fantasy.
“A strong man. A leader. A lover I can lean on, count on, not just for tonight but for all time.”
Elle had thought at first that Trace had made up the words, until one night when he showed her the website. The words weren’t what she’d ever have said. She prided herself too much on being pragmatic, never fantasizing. But Trace had taught her different. He’d shown her the truth of that stranger’s words. Today she had no doubts. No misgivings. She knew Trace was everything she needed in a lover…a lifetime companion, a man who’d meet her every need.
As Trace watched Elle greet old friends and new acquaintances at their reception, the look on her face made him feel like a million dollars. Strong, powerful and invincible. Though the spoken vows they’d made at twilight were to love, honor and cherish each other, she’d whispered in his ear that she was taking him as her Master. Her only Master. For as long as they both lived.
Surrounded by friends and family on the land he loved, Trace said a silent prayer of thanks for Elle, who outshone the garden that she’d restored into a showplace. She’d bowed to convention, chosen a long, white gown embroidered with purple wisterias and pale green leaves. God but she was beautiful. And she was his.
Lynn had hardly recognized the restored garden, and Mark had asked why Lynn had held their wedding on the front lawn instead of this magical place. “It wasn’t so magical fifteen years ago,” she said with a smile. “Elle resurrected it from an eyesore full of weeds, just like she turned my little brother from a tomcatting womanizer into a one-woman man.”
Trace smiled. He had been a skirt-chaser until he found Elle. Now he was perfectly content to stay home, be her husband…and her Master when the lights were dimmed. “You get the credit for finding me the woman of my dreams,” he told Mark. “Much as I’d like to spirit her away right now, I suppose I should go visit some with our guests.”
He needed his Elle fix, badly, so he joined her on her way to speak to her mother. He brought her fingers to his lips, delaying her steps. “Let’s leave our guests to celebrate and go inside before we have to hurry off to our honeymoon. I’ve got some things I’m longing to do with my kinky, darling bride.”
Elle gazed up at him adoringly. She needed to get away with him as well, be alone with her new husband, show him in every way she could that he was the most important thing in her world. Tormenting them both, she leaned in next to him and whispered so softly she hoped no one else could hear. “I’m with you, Master. I don’t know where you found it, but you came up with the perfect combination of Dom and protector. I love you more than I can say.”
Trace suppressed the urge to whisk her away, and faced his new mother-in-law. The woman, who had always impressed Trace as a cold fish more interested in her daughter’s security than in her pleasure, seemed to have softened in the romantic atmosphere of the garden setting, though. “How are you, Ms. Drake?”
“Well, thank you. The wedding was beautiful. I had my doubts about that garden, but it turned out just fine. You know I expect you to take care of my daughter. It seems you’re making her quite happy so far.”
Trace smiled at his mother-in-law. “You don’t need to worry, ma’am, I’ll take good care of Elle as long as I live, and I’ll do my best to never hurt her.”
“Thank you, son. I can’t ask for more than that.” Tears welled up in the older woman’s eyes, and Trace wondered if she was thinking of a time, years ago, when she’d gone into marriage with stars in her eyes—stars that Elle had told him went out, long before her father died.
He and Elle made the rounds, chatting with friends between trips to a catered buffet for sliced prime rib and savory side dishes. Just as they were about to cut the giant wedding cake and make their escape, Eli and Maggie came up to wish them well. “If you ever miss the club scene, Maggie and I are always available to join you,” Eli told Elle before giving her and Trace a huge bear hug. “For something more private than a full-fledged scene at Club Rio Brava.”
“Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.” Trace could hardly be jealous of the burly surgeon, not when Eli he was obviously so obsessed with his own wife. “Later, though.”
Now he wanted Elle to himself on the sunny Bahamas beach where he’d booked the honeymoon suite at a luxury hotel on a cliff over the Atlantic. He had several ideas of how he’d keep her so happily exhausted that she’d never regret having given up her club full of Doms for just one. Him.
The End
About the Author
Ann Jacobs is a sucker for lusty Alpha heroes and happy endings, which makes Ellora’s Cave an ideal publisher for her work. Romantica®, to her, is the perfect combination of sex, sensuality, deep emotional involvement and lifelong commitment—the elusive fantasy women often dream about but seldom achieve.
First published in 1996, Jacobs has sold over forty books and novellas, some of which have earned awards including the Passionate Plume (best novella, 2006), the Desert Rose (best hot and spicy romance, 2004) and More Than Magic (best erotic romance, 2004). She has been a double finalist in separate categories of the EPPIES and From the Heart RWA Chapter’s contest. Three of her books have been translated and sold in several European countries.
A CPA and former hospital financial manager, Jacobs now writes full-time, with the help of Mr. Blue, the family cat who sometimes likes to perch on the back of her desk chair and lend his sage advice. He sometimes even contributes a few random letters when he decides he wants to try out the keyboard. She loves to hear from readers, and to put faces with names at signings and conventions.
Ann welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email address on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.
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Also by Ann Jacobs
A Gift of Gold
A Mutual Favor
Another Love
Awakenings
Black Gold: Dallas Heat
Black Gold: Firestorm
Black Gold: Forever Enslaved
Black Gold: Love Slave
Captured anthology
Club Rio Brava 1: Loving Control
Club Rio Brava 2: Switching Control
Colors of Love
Colors of Magic
D’Argent Honor 1: Vampire Justice
D’Argent Honor 2: Eternally His
D’Argent Honor 3: Eternal Surrender
D’Argent Honor 4: Eternal Victory
Dark Side of the Moon
Enchained anthology
Gates of Hell
Haunted
He Calls Her Jasmine
Heart of the West: Hitched
Heart of the West: Lassoed
Heart of the West: Roped
Lawyers In Love: Bittersweet Homecoming
Lawyers In Love: Gettin’ It On
Lawyers In Love: In His Own Defense
Love Magic
Mystic Visions anthology
Out of Bounds
Storm Warnings anthology
Tip of the Iceberg
Topaz Dream
Wrong Place, Wrong Time?
Discover for yourself why readers can’t get enough of the multiple award-winning publisher Ellora’s Cave. Whether you prefer e-books or paperbacks, be sure to visit EC on the web at www.ellorascave.com for an erotic reading experience
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