Page 15 of Dare to Love Again

“Since you don’t have a dom looking after you, I will step in for a brief lesson. Though Carlos is an undeniable ass, you have experience, no matter how limited and should have known better than to take it off.”

“I won’t remove it again.”

“I’m going to hold you to that, and as a guarantee I promise the flat of my hand on your lovely ass if you so much as think about it. Got it?”

“Yes, sir,” she agreed quickly, also nodding, not daring to disagree with the big man who was kind, concerned, insightful, and utterly dominant. She wasn’t so rusty she would test him.

“As far as being too much, you’ll never find another club or a better community than what we have here at Decadence.”

Looking down at her, his eyes searching her face, she felt the invisible web of attraction building between them, or so she thought. His next words obliterated the fine threads of hope, unfortunately.

“Should you change your mind and decide you don’t want to wait until Pax gets back, find me and I’ll recommend a dom who is patient and will help you get back up to speed, yeah?”

Before she could blurt out, “why not you?” he squeezed her shoulder and walked away. Esme stared after him, his height, and those appealing glints of red in his dark-brown hair, making it easy to keep sight of him as he strode through the crowd. When she lost him some moments later, and she stood where he’d left her, the nagging feeling she’d missed out on something awesome made her frown. Despite the threat to her posterior, she could tell, without question, like Andrew and Pax, Master Finnegan was one of the good ones.

As she strained to find him in the mass of players, she noticed another man near a whipping post, staring at her with interest. How had she become a whip magnet suddenly?

Having gotten herself into enough trouble, she whirled and, avoiding eye contact with anyone else, made her way quickly toward the doors.

Chapter 5

CHORES CONSUMED HERday on Saturday. After cleaning the house and running a bazillion errands, including grocery shopping, her least favorite task of all, Esme kicked off her shoes and collapsed on her living room couch. One at a time, she propped her aching feet on a stack of throw pillows and lay back on several more, in need of a nap, several glasses of wine, and a quiet night in.

Who was she fooling? With Pax gone and her having sworn off the club until he returned and could run interference with scary-intense, cruel doms like Carlos and yummy-intense, near-perfect doms like Master Finnegan, every night would be a quiet night in.

As she lay there, thinking of mesmerizing green eyes, the stillness of the empty house became deafening. Her grunt broke the silence when Phineas, all twenty pounds of him, landed in the middle of her stomach. Unconcerned with her pain, he walked forward and sat on her chest, meowing loudly.

“Hungry, Phin?”

He stared at her and blinked.

She returned his look then sat slowly upright as the answer to what had been bugging her since last night became clear.

He meowed in outrage at being rudely pushed off his perch, but Esme scooped him up, a hand beneath each front leg, hefting him until they were face-to-face.

“No wonder they looked familiar,” she whispered. Master Finnegan’s eyes were the same shade of green as her cat’s. “I wonder if his friends call him Finn for short, too.”

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