Mastered: Ten Tales of Sensual Surrender (112 page)

Ronnie took a deep breath and looked around the room. Ian had blown her focus, totally.

Actually, that wasn’t true. He’d
held
her focus totally. It had started when he’d asked to hold her hand. Who the hell asked to hold hands in this day and age? Damned if it didn’t get into her head though. He’d had her in the palm of his hand right from the start. At first she’d thought he’d pull away from her hand as soon as they got up there. Her hands weren’t exactly soft and feminine. They were the hands of a mechanic, scraped skin, barked knuckles, and all.

But he hadn’t let go. Instead, he’d started staring into her eyes and stroking her. It was like he’d hypnotized her or something. Add in the current dampness of her panties and it would explain why she’d accidentally said no hard limits. It was her dream to find a dominant man who believed in getting in to her head before her panties, and damned if she didn’t just find him.

“You okay?”

She gave herself a mental shake and faced Conner again. “I’m fine. I thought we were supposed to shuffle around?”

“We were, but I wanted to check on you so I shuffled your way,” he said with a wink.

A laugh bubbled out of her and she nodded. “Thanks.”

“Would you like to sit with me?” Conner gestured to a set of nearby club chairs. “I’d like to discuss doing a scene with you.”

Conner had always been attractive, but something in the last few minutes had given him more confidence. The younger man stood taller, and was more in control somehow. When Ronnie nodded and he stepped back for her to walk first, and warmth pooled low in her belly.

He was treating her like a sexy woman, not a tomboy or a mechanic. A sexy woman who he respected, but still wanted to see naked.

She grinned. Seems like the problem had never been her after all.

Ian watched as Ronnie sat down with Conner and they began negotiating again. They really shouldn’t be paired up again but he couldn’t bring himself to walk over and say anything. Besides, he wasn’t the only one who noticed they were together again. Simon was watching them, too.

In fact, Ian had noticed Simon paying a lot of attention to Ronnie too.

Fuck.

Why did he care who was watching her, or who she preferred to train with? It would be different if he was worried about her safety, but he wasn’t. She was in the club, and he wasn’t the only trainer watching over her.

Turning his head he focused on the pair furthest from Ronnie and Conner, and headed their way.

Chapter Four

To Ronnie it seemed like no time existed between classes at Overwatch. Life went on, everyday like the next at the garage with the guys talking about woman, cars, and racing. Tina was back and Zane had brought in an old barn find. A ’55 Chevy Shortbox pickup that needed little work. Since she already had a Shelby she was rebuilding for an older client, Neil got to do the Chevy while Zane kept up with the oil changes and mundane day to day drop-ins.

Time passed, and soon she was headed back to Overwatch.

Thursday night they’d gone over what sensation play was. Ian had started the night off with a talk about impact toys. The man had looked damn good with a flogger in his hand. Something about that toy, and the way he’d described being able to use it to tease lightly or tame a bratty sub had really heated her up. Of course he hadn’t even glanced her way when he’d asked for a volunteer to be spanked with paddle.

Then there was Simon and his little talk on sensation play. She’d been lucky enough to be called up and used as he gave examples of some of
his
toys. He might’ve only run the Whartenberg Wheel over her bare arm and across her upper back, but it had been enough to get her imagination going big time. She was starting to believe she truly did want to try everything.

One part of the class that made her cringe was Eden’s discussion on pain, and torture play. Thank God she’d only touched briefly on the part about cock and ball torture before moving on.

It had been during that demonstration that Ronnie noticed Adam watching them. She’d closed her eyes and tilted her head back to mentally distance herself from Eden’s words. When she’d opened her eyes she noticed that there was an upper floor to the club. Only four or five feet wide, it ran the perimeter of the room, and Adam was up there, leaning over the rail looking down on them. She’d wondered why she hadn’t seen him since the first night, and now she knew. He was up there, watching over them.

She’d settled back into her seat, feeling warm, and strangely secure.

It had been interesting to learn about all the technical aspects of things, but the best part had been in pairing off and trying things with the others. She seemed to end up with Conner as a partner a lot, but she didn’t mind. He was quickly finding his way, and she they had good chemistry together. He didn’t make her melt with just a glance, but there was no denying he aroused her when they partnered up.

“Bondage means to be restrained in some way,” Eden said from the stage on the last Tuesday of classes. “It could mean something as simple as cuffing your arms behind your back, or as elaborate as suspending you from the ceiling with ropes. My personal favorite is tape.” She held up something that looked like a roll of super shiny duct tape. “I can get real creative with this stuff.”

Ronnie wasn’t into women, but a shiver went through her at the look in Eden’s eyes when she said that.

“I need a volunteer.”

Hands shot up everywhere, and Eden called a blonde named Nicole up. Nicole was older, a little plump, and very eager. No one spoke as Eden went to work with the roll of shiny red tape, wrapping it around Nicole’s ribs and breasts. She talked to Nicole as she worked, but Ronnie couldn’t hear what she was saying.

When Eden stepped back, Nicole looked like she was wearing a corset over top of her tank top. It sucked in her waist and pushed up her breasts, but it was the expression on her face that turned her from pretty to beautiful.

“Sometimes Bondage doesn’t even include restraining someone.”

The two ladies stepped off the stage, applause following them. Ian stepped up and Ronnie's breath caught in her throat. He wore faded blue jeans and a plain white button up shirt, yet he looked every inch the Dom of her dreams.

He held a pair of leather cuffs in his hands. “Volunteer?”

Hands shot up in the air again, and he called Doug, the lone male submissive in the group to the stage. Ronnie tried not to let it bother her that he hadn’t even looked her way.

Ian put the cuffs on Doug’s wrists and hooked them together in front of him. Then behind him. He described how they could be hooked to any apparatus, or a chain hanging from the ceiling. He pulled another set of cuffs from a duffle bag at one of the stations and put them on Doug’s ankles. The ankles could be cuffed together, or the sub could be bent over and wrists hooked to ankles. Then he pulled out a wide leather strap with a variety of small hoops on it. Ian wrapped it around Doug's chest and proceeded to show half a dozen ways the cuffs could be used in conjunction with the strap.

God, the man had an imagination on him that had Ronnie’s pussy swollen and aching at the thought of being stretched wide and bound for use in any way he wanted.

As of he read her mind, Ian’s gaze went to her and for the first time in what seemed like forever, their eyes met. “Dom’s are creative creatures, and we enjoy testing not only your limits, but the limits of our own imagination. There really is no end to the ways a good pair of cuffs can be used.”

Emotions swamped her, swirling through her body and soul. Desire, need, and,
Holy crap,
love.

For the first time since she’d walked into Overwatch, Ronnie kept her head down and didn’t volunteer for anything. It was all she could do to make it through the rest of the class without snapping at people to leave her alone. She just wanted to sit in the corner and think, to sort through her emotions and try to make sense of what was happening to her.

When class ended she moved swiftly to the door only to be pulled up short when Ian called her name.

She turned, and struggled to remain calm as he walked toward her.

“You okay?” he asked, concern darkening his clear blue eyes.

“Yeah, I’m good.”

“You looked like you were in a rush.”

“Nope,” she said with what she hoped was a careless shrug of her shoulders. “Just didn’t see a reason to hang around.”

He nodded. “Okay. Let’s go have a drink then.”

Huh?

He took her hand and led her up the stairs and out the first set of doors before she had a grip on herself again. “Is that allowed, you being a trainer and all?”

“There’s no rule against it. It’s the first time I’ve done it, but it’s also the first time I’ve known a trainee from outside the club.” He pushed through the last set of doors and turned left. “The coffee shop just up the road is still open.”

“Hey,” she said, stopping dead and tugging her hand from his. “Enough. What’s going on here, Ian?”

He stood stock still in front of her, expression blank. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that you’ve pretty much pretended I don’t exist since that little negotiation demonstration last week and now you want to take me for coffee? What’s up with that?”

He stared at her, silent and inscrutable. When the others started coming out the doors he raked a hand through his hair and shook his head. “I’m sorry if it felt like I was ignoring you. I didn’t intend to make you feel that way.”

“Well, you did.”

His mouth titled up at the corner. “Yeah, so you just told me.”

The pressure in her chest lessened and she smiled back at him. “Okay. Just so you got the point.”

His smile grew. “We okay?”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “Let’s go get that coffee.”

They didn’t talk as they walked down the street. Once they got their drinks, they found an empty corner table and sat down. Ian didn’t make her wait.

“So”” he asked. “What do you think so far?”

“To be honest I'm loving it. It's a lot different than I imagined it would be, but that isn't necessarily bad.”

“What did you imagine?”

“That everyone involved would either be a sexy model in fetish wear or a dark and handsome Dom wearing leather pants and a sleeveless vest. You know, with maybe a whip or a flogger tied to their hip, and always demanding you drop to your knees.” She laughed softly. “Okay, so maybe I exaggerated that a little bit, but you know what I mean? I worried it would be the stereo-type of a cross between a porn movie set and a nightclub.”

He laughed. “Well, you’re not actually that far off. When you come to the club and it's open you’ll see it
is
a lot like a regular nightclub — except, yes, some people are wearing fetish wear and some people are wearing nothing at all. Not everyone will have a perfect body, but everyone’s pretty damn comfortable in their skin, if you get what I mean. You might even see a Dom in leather pants, although I'm not too sure about the sleeveless vests. Many of us do take off our shirts, though.” He met her gaze head on. “It can get pretty hot in there.”

She fanned herself with her hand. “Shit, it’s getting pretty hot in here.”

He laughed and pleasure burst through her. It was nice just sitting with him.

“So, is that what you found on the internet? Men who wore leather pants and demanded you call kneel at all times?”

She sighed. “Yeah. It was real let down. A lot of puffed up idiots who thought that calling themselves dominant gave them the right to make it all about them. It was all about blow job's and booty calls, but not about dominance or submission. Except for the one’s who seemed to think the calling themselves dominant gave them the right to smack you around.”

Something deadly flared in his eyes. “Did somebody smack you around?”

She arched an eyebrow. “Do you really think I would
let
somebody smack me around?”

“Damn it. It’s a dangerous fucking world out there, Ronnie. What made you put that ad on the Internet?

“Look at me,” she said. “I'm almost thirty-five years old and sure I've had sex, even good sex, but I've never had a relationship before. I've never been in love, and I thought if internet dating could work for other people why not me?”

He visibly calmed himself, taking a deep breath before nodding at her. “I get it. It can be tough to find someone. What made you realize you were submissive?”

She blushed, but remembering how they met up again, she pushed past any nerves at speaking so freely. “I thought about the men I had been with, and which ones I thought were good sex, and which were just… exercise, and realized that the good sex had always been with a guy who took charge. It was like a lightbulb went off in my head, and once I realized that was what did it for me, I didn’t look back.”

When he nodded, she kept talking. The words just tumbling from her lips without thought. “I did internet searches, read some blogs and some books. Then I found the adult dating site, and thought it was perfect. Put up a profile, Bam! I had men emailing and asking to meet.” she stopped herself suddenly. Not sure she wanted to share the rest.

Blue eyes soft with concern, Ian reached across the table, putting both his hands over both of hers. “It’s okay, Ronnie. Nothing you can say will change the way I see you.”

Relief flowed through her. How had he known exactly what she needed to hear?

“At first I was like a kid in a candy store,” she admitted. “I met with too many men, and tried too many things. I look back now and think I’m lucky I didn’t get killed. I mean, I’m not an idiot, and I have good instincts. I never let any of them tie me up, or restrain me in any way, no matter how much I craved it. But I did let them do things like spank me, or fuck my face.” She shook her head and laughed softly. “I have to admit to having a bit of an oral fixation.”

He sat back in his chair, and folded his arms across his broad chest. “Oral fixation, huh?”

“Oh, yeah.” She flashed him a naughty smile and leaned forward staring deep into his eyes. “I came to the realization that I really love sucking cock. There’s just something about being on my knees in front of a man, serving him that way. The smell, the taste, the feel. Oh, god, the feel of a hard cock stroking against my tongue as he grips my hair and thrusts deep enough to hit the back of my throat so hard my eyes start to water and I fight to breath. I just love it.”