Master No (Masters and Mercenaries, #9)(54)

“Step forward.” The deep command of his voice heated her flesh. She stepped forward and he sat up, studying her like she was a work of art.

One hand came out, tracing the curve of her hips down to her thigh. “So none of the other doctors ever tried to climb into your bed? I find that hard to believe. I would have been all over you, darlin’.”

If he’d been the man McKay-Taggart had sent to be her bodyguard, she likely would have tossed aside all her very important rules about not getting involved with temporary people and fallen in bed with him. She was only now realizing that it had been easy before because she hadn’t found a man who threatened to set her on fire with a single look from his bright blue eyes. She’d never really found a man she lusted after. Oh, she’d thought she had. She’d told herself how good sex had been with Roger and the boyfriends she had before him, but this was a different scale. This wasn’t something a girl understood until she felt it.

She wanted to submit to this one man, to be his.

His hand cupped her breast and then she gasped at the pain that flared when he twisted her nipple. It quickly morphed into heat, flashing through her system.

“Faith, I want you here with me. I asked you a question. Don’t try to deflect me. If I ask you a question it’s because I want to know the answer.”

He had asked her about other doctors. It was funny. She didn’t like to talk about her job when she wasn’t working. That was the point of these months. But he was interested and she wanted to give him anything he desired. Foolish girl, but there was the truth. “A few have come on to me. Only one ever got aggressive about it.”

His eyes narrowed, but his hand softened, a sure sign she was pleasing him with her honesty. “Who?”

Shit. She didn’t want to get into this. She wanted him to make love to her, but he was a freaking chatty Dom. “Does it matter?”

She hadn’t really meant to sound so bratty. She’d meant it more like—hey, I don’t want to concentrate on the bad stuff. Let’s make good memories. It came out more like—God, you’re boring me and I’m rolling my eyes like a sullen teenager. Mistake. Yep. That was a major mistake since his hand withdrew and his whole body hardened.

“Go to the bed, palms flat on the mattress.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“But I did mean what I said. Go to the bed.”

Shit. This was likely going to hurt. And feel good. God, she was a freak but she’d accepted this part of herself a long time ago. It was the hurt she’d seen in his eyes that made her hesitate. She wasn’t going to hurt him more by disobeying when they were playing. She’d already figured out he could handle a great deal when they were in their everyday lives, but like all Doms, he needed some measure of control. He needed it here, and though her infraction had been minor, she intended to give it to him.

She was the impatient one, wanting to move more quickly than he was comfortable with. Damn it. Now he would likely slow down and all because she was trying to avoid intimacy again.

Palms flat on the bed. Spine straight. Calm. Collected. She waited for him this time. Breathe in and out. Accept what was coming because it led to something she loved. Pain could be transformed. It was another miracle of the human body. Endurance was rewarded with endorphins, with pleasure, with satisfaction and a release of tension.

Stress was the enemy. Acceptance her weapon of choice.

She relaxed as the first stroke of the crop hit her flesh.

It flamed along her skin and she tensed once more, every cell tightening before it came—acceptance. She breathed in and the flame turned to warmth.

“I asked you a question. Why wouldn’t you answer?” The crop came down again, but she was ready for it this time. This time she opened herself to the pain, knowing where it led. The crop stung against her flesh, the leather slapping. She took in the sound, the pain, the scent of leather.

Honesty was easy when she was in this place. There wasn’t a reason to hide here. Here she was naked and vulnerable, but it was all right to be both of those things. “I thought it would be different. I thought we would be play partners and not much more. Talking about my past makes me feel vulnerable.”

Another slap, this one softer, as though even the crop was pleased with her answer. “You thought we would have sex and play and go our separate ways when the time came? I did, too. I don’t know that still isn’t what we’ll do.”

He found a rhythm, but after the first few, he seemed to lose interest in the punishment portion. The strokes of the crop seemed to be more about keeping her with him in the moment than truly teaching her a lesson. Master T, it seemed, didn’t need to prove his point.

“We might,” she agreed. The thought of never seeing him again hurt, but she couldn’t be the girl who threw out her whole career for a guy she’d known for all of a month.

Even though she’d already started bargaining with herself, trying to find some way to keep him. God, her friends from med school would be beside themselves. The great and mighty Faith putting a man in front of her precious cause. Her sister would have a laugh.

And none of that mattered if she decided this was what she wanted. All that would matter was the two of them, and that was scary.

“I’d still like an answer to my question,” he said as the crop hit the backs of her legs.