Page 46 of Master My Love

He laughed good-naturedly. “I’ll get this intel to you asap.”

“It’s appreciated.”

“No problem, my friend. It’s part of the job.”

When they ended the call, Eric checked his watch. Then he strode quickly out of the multimillion-dollar beach house. He barely had enough time to make it to LA for Val’s class and salvage what had thus far been a crappy day.

***

THE WEEK HAD DRAGGEDby for her with only brief calls and a few texts. There was no Thursday class because of the scheduling SNAFU Eric had mentioned, so she didn’t return to LA until Saturday. When she walked into the lounge at midday and Master Thomas handed her a note first thing, she dreaded opening it. But she did, seeing Eric’s now-familiar bold scrawl.

Valeria,

If there were any way of avoiding my current commitment, I would be there with you now. Master Thomas has agreed to look out for you during class.

Don’t worry; there are no interactive events planned.

I will see you tonight at nine o’clock sharp at the front entrance.

Wear something slinky.

E

“He called me earlier and didn’t sound happy about this, either,” her instructor explained.

She looked up from the note to find he had lingered and was watching her closely. He must have seen the parade of emotions crossing her face. Were all doms so damn observant?

“The case has been evolving for months,” he said, his dark eyes conveying the weight of the situation. “It’s only now coming to a head and couldn’t be helped.”

“Don’t tell me you work for Rossi, too, Master Thomas.”

“I do some freelance work,” he said, shrugging his broad shoulders.

“Do you think he’ll actually be here by nine?”

“Come hell or high water,” the tall dom said with conviction. “If the boss said he’d be here, he will.”

She gave him a tentative smile and a polite thank-you. They spent the next two hours exploring the private rooms on the second floor and learning about role-play. But Val’s heart wasn’t in it. She had a bad feeling that tonight wouldn’t go as either of them hoped.

Each carefully designed room had a theme, and the décor ranged from lavish to exotic to downrightscary.In one room with silk-draped walls and an immense bed adorned with at least a dozen plush pillows, the scent of lavender filled the air. In another room, there was no bed at all, only an armoire in the corner and above their heads a ceiling full of dangling cables and pulleys.

“For suspensions and other things that require plenty of room,” Master Thomas advised.

As she wandered through each room, Val felt transported to different worlds because they had obviously spared no expense to make that happen.

Val’s eyes widened as she stepped into the opulent harem Eric had told her about. In the center of the room was a low-lying bed with a silk-draped canopy straight out of Cleopatra. All it lacked were some half-naked men with palm-frond fans and a fully naked Eric peeling her grapes. A giggle escaped, the sound echoing through the room, drawing looks from several other students. She quickly moved on, as though her outburst hadn’t happened and before her imagination took over again. This time in a fantasy Eric would prefer with him as the emperor and her his naked harem girl catering to his every whim.

The next door opened into a schoolroom. It was nearly empty, with only a large teacher’s desk and a single smaller one for a student. The one other item was a wall-mounted rack with an array of canes hanging from it, and among them a synthetic birching rod. She knew this from her research. What else did she have to do with Eric gone all the time except read? The name was misleading. It wasn’t a single rod at all but a bundle of seven wrapped in a leather handle and, if it lived up to its reputation, ouch!

There was a medical exam room, which made her somewhat squeamish, and she only gave it a cursory glance. When she looked through the window of the next room, she saw a weathered-looking bronze cage suspended from the ceiling, an aged wooden table with restraints, and stocks right out of the Middle Ages. Good grief!

Val’s eyes flicked to the door, noting the number. Room 6, the medieval torture chamber, was definitely off-limits. More like #666, she thought with a snort, only to find herself the subject of more curious glances.

As she followed her classmates down the hall, she made a mental note to add the mini-dungeon to her hard-limit list. Torture was not her thing. Serving her master while wearing a sheer harem girl costume and perhaps performing the dance of the seven veils, now that she could get into.

The class ended promptly at five o’clock, and Val headed toward the parking garage emotionally deflated. Being here without Eric wasn’t the same. She wondered if she would have pursued any of this after the first night if she hadn’t met him.

As she started up the stairs, the administrative entrance door swung open and Julianna walked out, casually dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. Val was greeted with a smile from the unfailingly sweet and friendly girl.

---