She nodded and opened her mouth to tell him to leave. “No.”
He grinned, a fierce, feral grin that wiped her out. “Drop the robe.”
Suddenly, the robe slithered to the floor. Norris glanced down, surprised to see it there. She raised her eyes to Adrian. “Why are you doing this to me?”
He glanced around her living room, selected a chair and sat. He propped one foot over the other knee, a pose she’d seen so often. He looked familiar, somehow comforting, yet out of place. He ran his hand over his chin. The slight rasp of his stubble grated down her spine.
“There have been some changes since you left,” he said conversationally, as if she wasn’t standing nude before him waiting for him to tell her why he was there.
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She said nothing.
“Personnel changes. Policy changes.” He waited, as if expecting her to ask for details. She kept her mouth firmly closed.
He nodded, as if he understood her refusal to give him the satisfaction of her curiosity. “For one thing, all programs are now strictly exercise and diet.” He paused.
“The same thing you’d find at any spa,” he added with a dismissive gesture.
That got her goat. “Afraid I’d tell the authorities?”
He had the gall to laugh. “No. Afraid we’d have too many applications.”
She rolled her eyes. “Sure. You’d have women coming out of the woodwork to be abused.”
He studied her. “You really are an innocent, aren’t you?”
“Not anymore,” she retorted.
“Ah, Norris. You have no idea.” He eyed her, making her wonder.
“About what?”
“There are people who get off on being dominated. Abused, as you put it.”
“Not me!”
“Really?” He lifted an eyebrow. “How do you explain how you felt and acted when you were under my control?”
“Not by choice.”
“Answer me.” His voice was cold and firm again.
She didn’t want to tell him a thing. Didn’t want to admit that once she’d submitted and accepted his control, she’d felt comforted. Protected. Cared for. Possessed and yet free. Free to experience anything and everything.
“Would you like to feel that again?” he asked softly.
How could he read her so completely? She turned her back on him, afraid to let him see her face, see her nipples, the way they’d pebbled.
He came to stand behind her. Close but not touching her. “Normally, after clients are released from the program, I go on to the next without a thought. I see them if they come back for a refresher course, but they don’t stick in my mind.”
She felt his heat envelop her. His forest-clean scent claimed her senses. Without touching her, he surrounded her with himself.
“But not you. I can’t stop thinking about you.”
It would be so easy to lean back and rest against his broad chest. It would feel so good to have his arms around her again, to have him play with her body and satisfy all her senses. It would be so easy to slip back into her old habit of submitting to his will.
Instead, she held herself very straight, fighting him and her own needs with all her will. “You have a strange way of showing it. You didn’t even say goodbye.”
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“That was wrong of me.” His admission startled her. He’d never admitted to any weakness, any failure. She turned to study his face. His expression was open and smiling. His eyes drew her in with their warmth. “I’m sorry.”
She hardened her heart. “You could have answered my phone calls. Even called me yourself. Instead you show up out of the blue expecting me to welcome you with open arms.”
“I think of you in my arms. Naked and passionate. I think of you fighting me, refusing to give in. I think of you coming apart for me. I want you, Norris.”
She shuddered, heat surging through her veins. It exploded against her spine, ricocheted back along her ribs and grabbed her heart.
“What if I don’t want you?” she whispered. “After all, we have nothing in common.”
“Don’t we?” he asked softly.
“I like meat,” she gasped, trying to resist the need spiraling through her. “I don’t like exercise!”
“I sold my partnership in
Sweet Discipline
,” he murmured, so close she felt his warm, moist breath on her ear, but still he didn’t touch her. “I’m no longer a trainer.”
She felt her mouth drop. She turned on her heel. “You owned it?” She glared at him. “
You
were taking my money to treat me that way?” She stomped her bare foot. “I was paying
you
?”
He blinked. “What’s the difference? You paid the fees. You knew I worked there.
Didn’t you think I got paid for what I did?”
“I was paying you for sex?” she screeched.
His mouth opened then shut. He glared at her. “You don’t think much of me.”
She hurt, she hurt so bad. Here she’d almost believed she’d fallen for him, not just sexually, but as a man who could complement her life. A man she wanted all the days of her life. And then she found out that he hadn’t been just an employee at
Sweet
Discipline
, but an owner! The knowledge left her reeling.
“Why did you sell?” she asked when she’d won her battle for control.
He shrugged. “It didn’t satisfy me anymore.”
“I can see why not,” she sneered. “Once you changed the policy and stopped forcing women to submit to you, I understand why all the fun went out of your games.”
“Believe what you want. But you were the only one.”
“Oh sure. That’s why it’s called
Sweet Discipline
.” She rolled her eyes. “Who named it that anyway?”
“I did. A private joke.”
She gaped at him. “You expect me to believe I’m the only woman you ever treated that way? You got so good at what you were doing the first time around?”
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“Woman, no. Client, yes.” He hesitated. His mouth firmed. “I’m a dominant. I’ve had experience.”
All the breath whooshed out of her lungs. “You have some nerve! First you’ve never done it before and now you have experience?”
“I said you were the only client. My personal life was my own. Until I met you.”
She sank down on the couch. “Let me get this straight. You make women submit to you?”
He sighed. “Okay. Listen up.” He eyed her until she sat quietly. “As a part owner and trainer I helped clients meet their goals of weight loss. I didn’t have sex with them.
Only with you.”
“Why me?”
He held up his hand for silence. “I told you. I needed a challenge. At work, in my personal life. I kept everything simple at work. No personal involvement with any client. For sure, no sex.”
“What about all those sex toys?” she demanded. “I definitely remember you saying you didn’t give them to clients so early in their stay. That means sex to me.”
He shrugged. “Many of our clients are women with active sex lives. Going six weeks without sexual release would be a hardship.
Sweet Discipline
caters to all a client’s needs.”
Norris rolled her eyes. “Oh sure, you provide butt plugs for all.”
“That was my personal contribution.”
“Why?”
“Something you need to understand. On my own time, my personal relationships with women were different.”
“Were?” she questioned quickly.
“Were,” he said. Firmly.
“So how were they different?”
“I told you. I’m a dominant. I had submissive women.”
“You did all those things to them?” It was hard to breathe. “The ropes? The…the…”
“Dildos? Those and more.”
Her eyes felt three miles wide. He answered her next question without her asking.
“A submissive woman belongs to her dominant partner. She gives herself to him.
Her body is his to do with as he pleases.” He kept her gaze. “Sometimes he has to train her to his needs and that can be hard.” He paused, as if making sure he had her full attention. “In return for the gift of her submission, a dominant has certain responsibilities.”
“Like what? Keeping the handcuffs shiny?”
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His grin was there and gone in an instant. “No. He protects his submissive. Keeps her from harm. If he loves her, he cherishes her above all others. He takes very good care of his possession.
I
take very good care of my possessions.”
Cherish? Love? Those were words she never associated with Adrian. Hearing him reveal a tender side along with his masculine possessiveness made her realize how much more she wanted from him. “You were training me to be your…whatchallit?”
“My submissive?”
She nodded.
“Yes.”
That one word. So simple. So clear and cold. Just
yes
.
“Without my knowledge?”
“Yes.”
“But why?” she got out. She cleared her throat. “Why me?”
“I wanted you. Wanted to see if it might become mutual.”
“But what if I didn’t want you? What if all that was for nothing?”
His mouth hardened. “Then I’d have let you go.”
“But you did let me go,” she reminded him.
He nodded.
“Why did you do that?” She didn’t try to hide the hurt in her voice.
“It was hard,” he admitted. “I didn’t want to but I wasn’t sure your submission then wasn’t based only on sex. I had to know how you’d do once you left the spa. If you’d still want me.”
“I was miserable,” she admitted in turn.
“I know. I kept an eye on you. I thought I’d have to pummel that guy with you tonight.”
She fought back a grin at the idea of Adrian walloping on Jack. Mess up that perfect look, then something he’d said registered. She frowned. “You said you’d seen me.
When?”
“Before you registered. After we got your application.”
She’d known they researched their clients, but this was more. Different.
Threatening. She felt stripped, exposed, much more than just being naked in front of him. “You checked me out?” Swallowed hard. “Spied on me?”
“You could call it that.” He nodded. “I needed to know more about you.”
“So what did you do? Pick my name out of a hat and say this one?” She gestured, her hand pointing at a nonexistent person. “That one will do?”
He laughed. “Hardly.”
“Why me, Adrian? Why me?”
“I told you. I saw you. I liked what I saw.”
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She blew him a raspberry. “You expect me to believe that? You saw me overweight and had the hots for me? Right.”
“Strangely, I didn’t care about your weight. I liked you, the person. I liked your spirit, your generous heart, even your stubbornness.” He smiled at her, slowly, tenderly. “I like you even better now.”
“Yeah, right,” she scoffed. “You tried to break me down, to change me—and you tell me you liked the old me?”
“More than liked. You fascinated me. You still do.”
“Strange way of showing it! Tethering me to that bar, making me kneel to you, making me ask permission to speak!”
“I had to make you learn control. Want something bad enough to fight for it.”
“I could have done that without being humiliated.”
“Could you? Would you have learned to trust your body, to control your reactions and your desires?”
She didn’t answer him.
“Would you have learned how to prolong your sexual pleasures? Would you have given yourself to me so completely?”
She turned away. The memories of those heat-filled nights with Adrian made her too susceptible to him now.
“I wanted you then, Norris. I want you now.” He came to her, standing so close she felt the heat of his body though he didn’t touch her. “I had to find out if you were strong enough, sure enough of yourself to learn submission. If you were strong enough to be my submissive partner.”
“You mean weak and humble, don’t you?”
He shook his head. “A true submissive has to be strong to know what she’s doing.
She has to trust her dominant partner to take care of her in all things. And with that trust, the Dom can’t fail her.” He touched her then, a slow caress along her jawline. “I didn’t fail you when you were my client. I won’t fail you now.”
Her heart did flip-flops. No way. She wasn’t going to fall for this. “I don’t believe you.”
“That’s your choice.”
“I don’t know you. I don’t even know your last name.”
“You know me well enough. The rest will come. And it’s Townsend.”
Adrian Townsend. It sounded right.
She didn’t know what to make of him. He was always so sure of himself, so certain, as if he knew all there was to know about her. Did he expect her now to fall to her feet and submit to him again? Her breathing changed with the thought. She needed to think.
She hardened her heart. “I want you leave.”
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He studied her for a moment. Nodded, and went to the door. He opened it, then looked back at her. He studied her for a moment, then without a word, left.
Her heart slowed into a steady, painful beat. He’d answered her questions, raised others and left her bleeding, mourning him.
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She dragged herself to work the next day, and then the day after that and all the days following, feeling like half a person. Not just physically smaller, but as if her heart had somehow shrunk along with her body, leaving her able to feel only grief.
She kept telling herself she’d done the right thing sending Adrian away. Adrian with his claims to want her for herself even before she’d dropped all those extra pounds. How could he lie like that to her?
Jack Rodriguez asked her out again. She refused him, just as she refused other men who gave her svelte new figure an appreciative once over and came back for a second, longer look.
“What’s with you?” Kendra shook her head over lunch one day. “You lost the weight. You’re skinny and gorgeous and sexy, and you’re telling all these guys no?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Are you nuts?”
Norris shrugged. “They don’t interest me.”
“I don’t understand you. You’ve got it. You’re flaunting it. Who are you saving it for?”
Good question. The only man she wanted to get naked with was Adrian and she’d blown that. Even if she went back nude, crawling, begging for another chance, he’d probably laugh at her.