You Only Love Twice (Masters and Mercenaries #8)(47)

His cock jumped at the thought that she was sitting right beside him and her pretty * was just a twist of that skirt away. “Nope. But the fact that you didn’t try to sneak any makes me think you’re already better at this than most of the other subs when they started.”

She straightened up. “I can follow orders when I think they’re reasonable. Or when I think I can’t possibly get around them. I thought about putting on some of my own underwear and then calculated the chances of getting away with it. They weren’t good. Someone would have noticed and according to that contract, you would have the right to spank me.”

“You liked it when I spanked you.”

“I…I…well, I was caught off guard and I don’t know how I felt about it. Seriously, can I get a drink?”

She could have stayed upstairs. There was still a bottle of wine left over. She wasn’t down here to drink. She was down here because she was curious.

He caught Mike’s attention. “Can I get the lady a pi?a colada?”

She shook her head. “I would prefer a vodka tonic.”

He frowned. “Really?”

“Sweetie, you might be able to drink those three thousand calorie drinks all day long and still look like a Greek god, but I can’t.”

Mike started making her drink but it bugged Jesse. “You’re beautiful, Phoebe. You don’t have to change a thing.”

Her hand slid over his. “I know you feel that way. It’s one of the things I actually really like about the men at the office. Not a one of you has a thing for stick-thin women. But I have to stay in shape. However, if you want to tell me I’m pretty again, I won’t hold it against you.”

“You’re gorgeous, baby.” He took a long sip of his drink. “Why are you here?”

She accepted her drink with a polite “thank you” before turning back to Jesse. “I’m curious. I shouldn’t be. If you asked a few months ago what I thought of this lifestyle, I would have said it was abusive.”

“That’s because you were ignorant about it.”

“There is that,” she conceded. “I was also afraid of it. I thought there was one way to love and be loved and I’d found it. My husband was very gentle with me, very protective. I couldn’t quite get the two ideas to mesh in my head.”

“What changed your mind?”

“I don’t know that it has. Not the intolerance part. I get that it’s not abusive. It’s a form of communication in the end. It’s a way for partners to state what they want in an environment that won’t judge them. I don’t hate that. I just don’t understand why you can’t just make love. Why does there have to be all the other stuff involved?”

At least they were talking about it now. Before, she would always change the subject, and he’d gotten the idea that she would never be interested and any sex life they had would be vanilla. He could have handled it, but they could be so much more. “I know what you’re saying. I kind of thought the same things when I hired on and Big Tag insisted I come to Sanctum. I didn’t get why I had to wear a set of leathers and spank some chick in order to be on his team.”

“And I would be surprised if you handled it well. How could you accept some woman calling you Master after what you went through?”

It was a reasonable question, though he winced a little at her tone. Patience. He hadn’t understood at first either. “It’s just a word, Phoebe. It has the power we give it. That’s what I learned from here. I learned that whatever happens between two consenting adults isn’t wrong. I still won’t do any blood play or knife play. That bothers me, but that’s okay, too. Sanctum is a place where I can just be me and no one judges me. They accept me. Big Tag brings us all here because this place, this life, binds us together. It makes us a family.”

He could have sworn he saw a sheen of tears in her eyes before she covered them with a shake of her head and a bright smile. “Okay. I can understand the beauty of that. So what do we do, Sir?”

That got his motor running triple time. “Phoebe, you understand there doesn’t have to be anything sexual about play, right?”

“I understand the theory behind it. It can be about exploration and relaxation. Most club encounters don’t end in sexual intercourse. Although Simon tried to make me think yours do.”

“I have never had sex with a submissive at this club.”

“Why?”

“Because they weren’t mine. Because my heart was engaged somewhere else.”

Her eyes closed briefly as if she was in pain. When she opened them again, she put a hand over his. “Jesse, I don’t know what I can offer you. I know I would like to try this thing with you. I know I enjoyed that moment in your office before you were a complete douchebag and ruined everything.”

Well, at least she called it like she saw it. “I’ll try not to be a douchebag again.”

“I’m still leaving at the end of this assignment. I have to get back to my real life.”

He wasn’t sure why her real life had to be thousands of miles away from him, but he didn’t want to argue with her tonight. She was here. She was bending. He wasn’t going to make her break. “Then we should set the parameters. You’ve given me yours; I’ll give you mine. Just for the night. Anything else, we discuss as it comes up, but you have to talk to me, Phoebe. This doesn’t work in any way if you think I can read your mind.”