Authors: Sasha White
Unfettered
UNFETTERED
an Overwatch novella
I want a man who wants ME. Someone I can tell my deepest desires and feel no shame or embarrassment.
I want a man who can look past the boyish body and the grease beneath my nails to see the woman I am. I need a man who will see me as the sexual creature I am, not just as “one of the guys” or the girl mechanic with the magic touch. He’ll see me, want me, and take pride in knowing I am his—and that I’ll do anything for him.
Ronnie stared down at the words she’d just written and sucked in a deep breath. It was one thing to have those thoughts when lying in bed alone at night and another to see them in stark black and white. Knowing that others were going to read them made her feel very raw—exposed in a way she’d never really anticipated.
“Get used to it,” she muttered to herself before taking a sip from the glass of Don Julio in front of her. It was the good stuff, a treat to herself on her thirty-fourth birthday. Too bad she had nobody to share it with.
Which brought her right back to the application forms in front of her.
She’d laid it all out—the fantasy man she’d been dreaming of for as long as she could remember, even though she didn’t really believe it was possible to find him. That was okay, though. She was ready to settle for just the sexual fantasy. Since she was giving up on the romantic one, maybe she should scratch out the last line of her answer.
With a glance around her empty apartment, and a nod to the bottle of tequila in front of her, Ronnie decided to leave it as it was. Mason Hardin, the guy who’d sent her the membership applications and information on Overwatch, had said to be as honest and to-the-point as possible when she filled out the forms, so she’d listen to him. And the truth was, no matter how cynical she’d become in her mind, deep in her heart she still held the same dream almost every woman did—that there was a Mr. Perfect-for-her out there somewhere.
Men never saw her as anything more than the female mechanic with the magic touch. She was great with engines, could make any of them purr like a kitten or roar like a lion. But with men? Not so great. This was Los Angeles, where super-models and actresses walked the streets and the average woman was a D cup. Men looked at her plain features, straight body, and the grease under her fingernails ... and she disappeared as a woman.
To them, she was just one of the guys, another mechanic in the shop. She was barely a female in their minds, let alone an attractive one, and she was tired of it. She wanted to be seen as a woman. A strong, sexy, desirable woman who inspired lust and all sorts of dirty thoughts in a man. And she wanted to follow through on those dirty thoughts.
It might be wrong to admit it, but she dreamed of being a man’s sexual plaything. Of being touched, teased, and used. Ultimately, she wanted a man who would love that about her, one who would cherish the gift she’d make of herself in the bedroom, but she was thinking that was an impossible dream. Getting into Overwatch would help her figure that out, and filling out this questionnaire was the first step to getting there.
If approved, this would get her enrolled into a program geared specifically to training her as a sexual submissive at a real club with people who knew what they were doing. Without a partner she could trust to explore with, it was the only safe way to figure out if the men she was meeting were truly the problem, or if her dream was simply unrealistic. Only, it involved making herself completely vulnerable to men and women she’d never met and really knew nothing about.
She sighed.
Joining Overwatch was either the smartest thing she’d ever do or the dumbest.
Ian Johnson stared down at the handwritten words on the application in front of him. It was a bold answer, an honest answer. The way the letters started to slant and wobble toward the end made it clear the author’s emotions had leaked into her words. Someone who was so open and honest about her needs would be a joy to initiate into the world of BDSM, which was why there was already a debate at the table over who would be this one’s trainer — and why his heart was suddenly pounding against his ribs.
“She’s delightful,” Eden said.
Simon was practically drooling. “She has no experience?”
“She’s not a virgin; she’s had lovers, even some playtime,” Adam said as he leaned forward and braced his arms on the table. “She’s got enough experience to know she wasn’t getting what she needed from them, so she placed an ad online and met some wannabes.”
Ian’s gut clenched, and he tamped down the rush of anxiety that hit at that bit of news. Eden groaned, and Simon cursed beneath his breath as he reached for another beer. The four of them were seated in deep, cushioned chairs around a low table in the middle of the closed club, an ice bucket of full of bottled beers in the middle of the table. Only select Doms and Dommes at the club participated in the core training program for Overwatch, and they all took turns. This round was Simon Sharp, Eden Morgan, and himself. All of them agreed the damn Internet made it too easy for the curious to find trouble.
It was dangerous, especially for submissives who didn’t know how to protect themselves. Ian knew the need to protect submissives, to provide them a safe place to explore and meet good Doms, was why Adam had opened Overwatch. He took their safety seriously. In fact, he was obsessive about it.
As the owner of the club, Adam vetted all the applications for membership and decided who would or would not be accepted. The man was strict as hell about any Tops who wanted in, but Ian had yet to see a submissive rejected. Those with little or no actual experience were required to go through the training program, which ran four or five times a year, and not all of them made it through the process, for various reasons, but it was always their choice to walk away. They weren’t turned away.
Since Adam limited the number of trainees for each class to ten or twelve, he liked to give the trainers a heads up on who would be in the class, beforehand.
As one of those trainers, Ian wasn’t quite sure what to do about the application in front of him.
Damn it. There really was only one thing he could do. “I know her,” he said.
Conversation stopped, and Adam’s eyes snapped to his. “How well?”
“Well enough.”
Adam nodded. “How do you want to handle it?”
Ian bit back the urge to shout
Hell no
, to those seated at the table. No way was he going to let his childhood friend’s little cousin join a kink club.
It was unusual for one of the trainers to know an applicant in their day-to-day life, but it happened. When it did, Adam let that trainer have the final say on how to handle the applicant. He could step back and get one of the others to take his place with this class or he could ask Adam to deny her application. Neither option felt right, so what was he going to do?
Simon and Eden remained silent while Ian considered his options.
Denying her was a knee-jerk reaction. He had no real reason to do it, other than thinking about what Dave would say if he said yes. What he should be considering was what Ronnie would do if he said no. Adam said she’d placed an ad online. God only knew what sort of men she’d met as a result, but they couldn’t match the Doms of Overwatch.
Would she place another ad if she didn’t get into the club? Where would she go to get her needs met? If she truly was submissive then she needed what they could offer her. What he could offer her.
Decision made, he lifted his gaze from the table and looked at the others. “Accept her.”
Ian’s work kept him busy, leaving him little time for a social life, and he liked it that way. Romance and emotional entanglements were not his thing, and most of the time, being a sexual dominant helped him steer clear of them. He’d head to Overwatch when he wanted, play a little, and leave. He didn’t have a permanent sub, and he wasn’t looking for one. Which was also why training the new ones was one of his favorite things to do. He loved helping subs to find their way by testing their boundaries and learning their limits, and then setting them free to find the right Dom for them.
But Ronnie Mack … the tomboy next door. He wasn’t sure he could train her.
Damn, she’d been such a little thing when she’d moved in next door. Tiny, and tough, she’d walked around with a chip on her shoulder that had held her relatives at a distance no matter how much they tried to bring her into their fold.
“Alright, everyone. First meet’s tomorrow night. Be here and ready to engage.” Adam’s words pulled him out of his head and back to the table. “Ian, stick around a minute.”
No surprise there. Simon and Eden nodded to him as they left the table, and Ian faced Adam.
Ian wasn’t an idiot, so he had a pretty good idea what was coming. He wasn’t wrong.
Adam leaned back in his seat. “Between you and me, how well do you know her?”
He’d tell most people to mind their own business, but he’d known Adam for almost five years, and he respected the man. Plus, this was Adam’s business. “Her parents died when she was ten, and she came to California to live with her aunt and uncle. She was the girl next door, literally.”
“So you knew her pretty well.” It wasn’t a question.
In some ways, they’d been kindred spirits, but they’d never really been friends, not the kind who hung around together, anyway. He shrugged. “Her cousin Dave was one of my buddies in high school, but she held herself apart from everyone. She was a tomboy from Oklahoma living in Brentwood. She didn’t fit in, and she never really tried to.”
“How long has it been since you’ve seen her?”
Ian glanced away. “I left when I was eighteen and only came back to Los Angeles five years ago. And before you ask, no, I never looked them up when I came back. I haven’t seen her, or her family, for almost twenty years.” And why did admitting that make him feel like a prick?
“Knowing her could be a detriment, if you go into this with preconceived notions,” Adam, said, looking him straight in the eye.
“I’m aware.”
Adam gave him the hard stare for another minute, but Ian didn’t back down. He was a successful businessman, one of the most sought-after software designers in the country. He might be a geek, but he sure as hell wasn’t a wimp. Still, Adam Kessler wasn’t a guy you wanted to fuck with, no matter who you were. And looking after the subs who joined his club was something he took very personally.
Just when Ian was starting to take offense at his obvious concern Adam nodded. “Okay then. You’re a good man, and a damn good Dom, so I’ll trust you to let me know if your history becomes an issue.”
Ronnie’s stomach jumped as she stared at the building in front of her. Was this the right place? The parking lot was half full of vehicles of every description. There was a shiny new Mercedes parked between a dented Ford pickup and small pink Hyundai. Who the hell would want a pink car? She’d parked at the far side of the building, next to a kick-ass midnight-blue ’67 Nova that made her fingers itch to pop the hood. She struggled to ignore it as she moved toward the door. She wasn’t there because of her passion for fast cars, she was there for another passion. One she needed help exploring.
When she was about three feet from the set of double doors at the front, she saw the simple black X directly in the center of it and knew it was the right place.
Overwatch. The private club that just might be the answer to her prayers.
This place had been recommended to her after a she posted a particular rant on the “lifestyle” website she’d been using to try and find a Dom. After posting the rant, she got a message from Mason Hardin, the owner of a club up in Canada. He sounded like he knew what he was talking about, and she’d emailed with him a few times before he sent her the paperwork and told her to apply for membership at Overwatch, and here she was.
Her fingers trembled when she reached for the handle, and she paused for just a second. She was about to step into another world, one she’d only ever dreamt of belonging to. One she wanted— no, one she
needed
to be a part of. Each day since she’d made the decision to join the club, her lust had gotten stronger. Filling out the application had fired up her imagination, and her dreams had gotten darker, raunchy enough that a couple of times she’d woken up so wet she’d thought she’d peed the bed like a little girl. If only she’d remembered the orgasms she was obviously having in her dreams, they might satisfy her inner hunger a bit. Instead, they just made the need for a man claw harder at her insides.