Page 1 of Master My Love

Chapter 1

TEETERING ON FOUR-INCHspiked heels, Valerie Thornton came to a stop and looked behind her. After making sure no one was watching, she gave the back of her leather skirt a firm tug. She’d done this more times than she could count since leaving home an hour earlier. But the hem kept creeping higher no matter if she was moving, sitting, or standing still, nearing a point in its northern migration where it stopped being provocative and became indecent.

A slender twenty-five-year-old could walk into a club in a miniskirt and it was perfectly acceptable, even expected. At forty, a widow, the mother of two, and the former chairman of the Long Beach High School PTA, who left slender behind twenty years ago, attempting to pull it off was a different story. Val had to question yet again what she was thinking when she put it on.

When she reached the bottom of the stairs leading to the main entrance without flashing innocent bystanders, she was relieved. But that vanished, replaced by dread when she eyed the rather steep steps. There were a lot of them. Anyone behind her would see her dimpled thighs and most of her ass, thanks to the thin scrap of lace wedged between her cheeks. The girl at Victoria’s Secret called it a cheeky panty. However, the minuscule garment wasn’t deserving of the name. It was more like a thong or a belt.

She didn’t fault the sales person, likely working on commission, for selling a size 12 woman something only a 6 should ever wear. No, she laid the blame for her current underwear crisis—or lack thereof—squarely at the feet of her new, ex-best friend, Kate.

While squirming uncomfortably, she stifled the urge to tug at both her skirt and the scrap of lace. “I’m gonna kill her,” she muttered then clamped her mouth shut, seeing the odd looks a couple shot her way before skirting around her and mounting the steps.

When she watched the doors swing open and the man and woman disappear inside, she took her words back. She would give anything to have Kate by her side.

An experienced submissive in the lifestyle for years, who frequented play parties and bondage clubs, her friend knew what to wear. She’d put together the leather and lace ensemble, which Val had squeezed herself into, for what Kate called maximum impact.

She grunted. More aptly, it was minimum coverage, but being clueless about what to expect, Val followed her advice.

Heck. Clueless didn’t begin todescribe it.

What she knew about BDSM came from books and movies. Taking the leap from fiction to reality by coming here alone made her question her judgment, if not her sanity. What she needed was a jolt out of the boring, lonely existence and back into living, and it had to happen soon before she was too old to do something about it.

She glanced at the invitation in her hand. Ever since it had arrived in her mailbox—without a sender’s name or postage—she had trouble thinking about anything else. At first, it had freaked her out that a stranger, possibly a stalker, might have been to her home. Then she wondered if it was someone she knew. Trying to guess who had been driving her nuts.

As the day approached, her response to the invite went from hell no to maybe, and finally, to why the heck not?

Now, on the threshold of an exciting new chapter in her life, and here she was, shaking in her stilettos, and rapidly sliding toward hell no.

“Go for it,” her friend had urged. “If what you see isn’t to your liking, you can leave. But you’ll always wonder what might have been if you don’t at least try?”

Kate was right. Val would kick herself tomorrow, and for weeks, months, and maybe years to come if she chickened out. Invitations to open sub night at Decadence LA, the most exclusive sex and bondage club on the West Coast, didn’t appear in her mailbox every day.

What’s more, despite being completely terrified, and possessing no psychic abilityat all, Val sensed that tonight, whether good or bad, would be transformative.

Staring up at the double doors, she took a deep breath to calm her racing heart. She wiped her damp palms on her skirt and tugged at the hem one more time. That she made it this far on her own was amazing, quite frankly. She rarely went clubbing and had never gone by herself. But Val had a craving, an unfulfilled need that sitting home alone every Friday and Saturday night wouldn’t appease.

Was it possible what she’d been searching for lay behind those innocuous tinted doors? More so, did she have the courage to go inside and find out?

“If you don’t do it now, you might never get the nerve again. And that would be a damn shame?”

Val glanced over her shoulder. The owner of the deep masculine voice was a stunningly handsome man who looked about ten years her junior. He wore all black, his leather vest open in front. Without a shirt on underneath, his muscular chest, broad shoulders, and powerful-looking arms were visible and nothing short of magnificent.

Encircling one bulging biceps was a free-form tattoo, the design hypnotically beautiful, and although she was hardly an expert, she could tell an artist’s hand had inked it.

She couldn’t help but admire it. His ripped abdomen had a line of dark hair that drew her gaze to his obscenely tight pants like a flashing neon sign. The bulge behind his button fly and outlined along several inches of leather-encased thigh was impossible to miss. Blindness or death would be the only believable excuses for not noticing.

Holy cow!

His low chuckle and softly uttered, “I’ll take that as a compliment, little subbie,” made her realize she’d spoken aloud. “A word of advice, since you’re obviously new. Curb your enthusiasm once you get behind those doors. Eyeing a dom inside, the way you did me just now, is like sending him an engraved invitation. You’ll be bare-assed over a spanking bench for a sound paddling, and likely a hard fucking, before you can say, ‘Thank you, master, may I have another.’”

Val gasped as mortification raced through her. Caught gawking at his, um...attributes, she deserved the crude set down.

“I’msorry,” she whispered, as she side-stepped, heading toward her car rather than the entrance. “This was an incredibly bad idea.”

He took her arm, not roughly, but with enough firmness to spin her around, thwarting her hasty escape.

“Whoa! I didn’t intend to scare you off.”

Her head fell back, ready to demand he let her go, except the words evaporated on her tongue. She’d never be considered tall by any measuring stick, but standing this close, the massive, plainspoken, intimidating man made her seem like a kid. It wasn’t only his size. He exuded confidence, and she sensed an underlying current of danger. If she hadn’t met him outside a BDSM club, one glance would have declared him a dominant, even to a novice.

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