“Oops.” She quickly ate the bite, moaning softly in pleasure. “I just… Sorry.” She covered her mouth with her hand and swallowed. He had to try very hard not to laugh at her. “Okay, sorry. Had to swallow.”

  “You don’t have to swallow. It’s just appreciated.”

  She swatted him with her napkin. “I thought you were nicer than Mistress Nora at first. Now I’m questioning that.”

  “You should.”

  With a theatrical gesture of fingers to lips, she cleared her throat. “As I was saying, Mr. Wolfe, you are not what I expected.”

  He sat back in his chair, eyebrow raised. “What have you heard about me?”

  She took a long drink of her tea, then set her mug down. “No comment.”

  “Let me guess,” he began. “Edge hates me for flirting with Juliette.”

  “Flirting with her while she was pregnant,” she said. “That’s the key point there. Also, for stealing his employees. Oh, and for tricking him into thinking some lady ran your club who didn’t even exist.”

  “It’s fun to mind-fuck a mind-fucker. And I only flirted with Juliette to remind her she has other—arguably better—options.”

  “That’s the only reason?”

  “I do love pissing Edge off. The French are so cute when they’re angry.” He gave her a wicked grin.

  “Griffin Fiske hates you, too. Said you tried to break him and Michael up.”

  Brad set his fork down. “I assume he’s referring to the brief conversation I had with Griffin about some warning signs I was seeing in his relationship. Closeness is one thing. Smothering is another.”

  “Yeah, Griffin can be a little much where Michael’s concerned.”

  He looked at her over his coffee mug. “A little?”

  She shrugged. “Okay, a lot. But I can’t blame him. Michael’s a prize.”

  “Prizes are things, objects. Young doms like Griffin have to learn the hard way that people are not objects.” Her eyes were wide with worry. “Sorry. My hackles go up when I see a dom treating their sub not the way I would treat mine. If I had one.”

  “You’re a wolf,” she said. “Of course your hackles go up. I think I saw them go up the second I said ‘prize.’”

  “Maybe I can brush them back down?” Jokingly he ran his hand through his hair over the back of his neck. “Better?”

  Sheridan shook her head at him, smiling, almost laughing. She looked so pretty, so happy. Hard to believe she was the same girl who’d been shaking and crying in the fetal position on his dungeon rug half an hour ago.

  “Do you just hate all other dominants?” she asked.

  “‘Hate’ is a strong word. Distrust? Mistrust? And I’ve always had a soft spot for submissives. Typical service top,” Brad said and waited to see how she’d react to that. Some submissives weren’t big fans of service tops. They wanted it to be 100 percent real 100 percent of the time. The idea that the top might be in it to make the sub happy didn’t count as “real” to a large percentage of the community.

  But Sheridan didn’t even blink.

  “Why do you like us so much?” she asked.

  “For more reasons than I can count. The courage it takes to submit, the generosity with your bodies, the willingness to serve, the strength to be humbled—”

  “And let me guess—you like us because we know our place?”

  “No, not that.” He took her hand, brought it to his lips, and kissed it. “Because you help me find mine.”

  NINE

  Since Brad cooked, Sheridan insisted on clearing the dishes and putting them in the dishwasher. He stood near her, back to the counter, offering assistance, but letting her do it, which she appreciated. Nothing drove her crazier than people treating her like she was helpless.

  A Bluetooth radio on the windowsill was playing soft-seventies Christmas classics. As Jim Croce crooned “It Doesn’t Have To Be That Way,” Sheridan slotted the plates neatly in the dishwasher as Brad leaned over, pretending to inspect her work.

  “Well done,” he said. “I approve of your technique.”

  “Thank you,” she said as she picked up a mug already in the dishwasher, rearranging to make more room. She paused to examine the child’s drawing of a flower on it. Daddys Mug, it read.

  “My daughter made that for me,” he said.

  Daughter? Brad had children? In an instant, her entire perception of him changed. He was older than her, yes, obviously, but this wasn’t about his age but maturity. There were men his age who were overgrown children. But he was a father? That meant he was a real adult.

  “You have children?” she asked. He hesitated for a split second. “You don’t have to tell me. I know people in the scene don’t like to talk about their personal lives.”

  Mistress Nora hadn’t mentioned any kids. Maybe she didn’t know, or maybe she did and knew Brad didn’t like talking about his daughter?

  “You’re in my house. The house I bought for my family. We can talk about my personal life if you want.” He handed her the mixing bowl, but not before swiping the bottom with his finger and licking up some leftover batter. She gave him a side-eye. No matter how old they got, men were still boys.

  “So…a daughter?” She hand-washed his wooden pancake turner. A nice one, possibly a family heirloom, not dishwasher safe.

  “Lola. Product of a one-night stand four years ago, but hey, no regrets here. Her mother got married two years ago, and moved to Austin, but I get Lola every summer. She can count to a hundred. She’s already reading picture books. Obviously she’s the smartest kid on the planet.”

  “Obviously,” Sheridan said, nodding in agreement.

  He walked over to the fridge, plucked a photo off the front, and held it out for her. The girl was adorable, dark brown skin, brown eyes, a halo of curly hair.

  “What a doll,” Sheridan said. “She’s got your eyes.”

  “And my heart.” He smiled as he put the photo back onto the fridge.

  “Um…personal question, but are you going to tell your daughter what you do for a living?”

  “When she’s old enough to ask, I’ll tell her I own a private club in New York. When she’s old enough to get curious, I’ll send her to Japan.”

  “Mr. Wolfe.”

  He laughed. “No, I’ll tell her I run a club and it’s adults-only. Hopefully she’ll accept that, but if not, I’m not ashamed to be kinky. If I were gay, I would tell her if I ran a gay nightclub. What’s the difference?”

  “I guess there isn’t, except…feels like there is.”

  “I know,” he said. “But acceptance starts with us. If I can’t accept myself and what I am, I can’t really expect anyone else to.”

  “Mistress Nora says the same thing to me.” Sheridan sighed. “I still can’t believe they’re moving.” She closed the dishwasher and started wiping down the butcher block countertops. “They’re the only people who know what I am. Them and you. Gets lonely pretending all the time.”

  Brad picked up a clean dish towel, dried off the pancake turner, and put it in the drawer with the other utensils. She shouldn’t be enjoying this, should she? Playing house with Brad Wolfe? But she was. Way too much.

  “If it makes you feel any better, I’ve been lonely, too. I bought this house six months ago expecting to spend my first Christmas here with my new wife, her two kids, and my daughter. You don’t buy a five-bedroom house for one person. I walk in the front door and my footsteps…they echo.”

  “I was wondering why it was so…empty? No Christmas tree or anything. No personal stuff.”

  “I was waiting for my family to move in. Didn’t quite work out that way.”

  “You said your fiancée ended things. That must have been hard.” Sheridan noticed a few herbs in pots on the windowsill that needed watering. She ran them gently under the tap.

  “To be honest, that’s not exactly what happened.”

  Sheridan heard the note of tension in his voice. She placed the plants back on the windowsill.

  “What happened?” she said as casually as she could. “Was she vanilla?”

  “No, she was very kinky. Natural submissive,” he said. A simple statement, but she felt a sudden stab of jealousy. “But she’s divorced, two kids—five and seven. Which I loved, you know. A brother and sister for Lola. We were three months from the wedding when her son found a pair of handcuffs under her bed and took them to school.”

  “Oh, no.” Sheridan gasped.

  “His teacher thought it was hilarious. She said she’s seen much worse, but Rachel panicked. She called off the wedding. She wanted to keep seeing me, but just for sex. I was planning a family here in this house—wife, kids, couple of dogs, couple of cats…”

  He shrugged as if it were nothing, but his jaw clenched.

  “I get it. Custody battles are no joke,” he said. “And ‘Mom’s a kinky freak’ is fair game in court. No hard feelings, but I told her I wasn’t in it for sex. Not at my age. I wanted it all, and if she couldn’t give me that? Goodbye.”

  Sheridan tilted her head back to show off the collar and smiled, hoping to make him smile. “So that’s how I got her Christmas gift?”

  Brad reached out and turned the radio off halfway through The Band’s “Christmas Must Be Tonight.” He was stalling and it made her nervous. After a moment he looked at her.

  “The collar wasn’t a Christmas gift,” he said. “That was a wedding present.”

  TEN

  Softly, she said, “Brad.”

  Just that. Just his name. But it hit him like a silver bullet.

  She went to him and put her arms around his neck. He lifted her easily and set her on the countertops that she had just cleaned.

  His hands roamed up and down her back, molding her body to his. Sheridan wrapped her legs around his back and rubbed her cheek against his chin stubble like a cat.

  “It’s all right,” he said. “I’m only happy this isn’t going to waste.”

  Brad bit her collar and tugged on it with his teeth. When he’d gotten them back from the leatherworker who made custom gear, it was the first thing he imagined—this collar around his wife’s neck on their wedding night, his teeth biting the leather, leaving the impression there forever.

  Sheridan gave a small moan of pleasure and pressed her neck into his mouth as if asking for more teeth, more biting. Well, if that’s what she wanted…

  Brad lifted her off the counter. Was he showing off? Maybe. He could have put her down, but he didn’t want to. There were men half his age who couldn’t have carried a girl up a flight of stairs. He wanted her to know that even if he was old enough to be her father, he was strong enough to take care of her. At least tonight, if tonight was all they had.

  She weighed nothing in his arms. He carried her upstairs and down the hall, past the dungeon, and kept walking.

  “You missed your turn,” she said into his ear. Her shapely legs felt like heaven wrapped around his waist, her arms around his shoulders.

  “I’m not taking you to the dungeon.”

  He lightly kicked the door to his bedroom open. The lights were off, but he could find the bed in the dark. He carried her there, laid her down, then switched on the bedside lamp.

  His bed was large and low. The thick mattress rested on an oak platform he’d built himself. Black comforter. White sheets. Sheridan lay on her back across the bed, quiet and waiting. He knelt at the side of the mattress, which was low enough that the top of the bed reached his hips. He took Sheridan’s ankles in his hands and pulled her toward him. Her soft laugh was music to his ears. Nothing made him happier than a happy sub in his bed.

  He parted her legs and laid them on either side of his body.

  She wasn’t wearing panties. Brad wanted to taste her inside and out, but first, he wanted to look at her. She lay on her back, his white shirt pushed up to her stomach. Her soft stomach quivered as she waited for him to make another move. Her eyes were half-closed, watching and waiting. He took her thighs in his hands and pushed them wide open. Then with his fingertips, he opened her folds, exposing the wet pink interior, the inner flesh so slick and tender. Carefully he pulled back the hood of her clitoris. Beautiful little thing. Mouth-watering. He pushed two fingers into her vagina and ran them along the front wall. Sheridan let out soft moans as he searched out all her most sensitive places. He found a tight knot of muscle inside her, touched it, and watched her flinch with pleasure. He went at it again, massaging it until it throbbed like a beating heart.

  “You have an incredible cunt,” he said. “The most beautiful cunt I’ve ever seen in my life. So pink and tight and wet. It’s a fucking work of art, Sheridan. I could play with this—” and he punctuated that statement by pushing three fingers up and into her “—all night…opening it, spreading it out, finding every nerve and soft spot inside you… Fuck, kitten, I could look at it all night long and know I didn’t waste a second of my life.”

  She pumped her hips against his fingers. And her hands gripped the comforter, pulling on it as her head fell back and her breaths quickened.

  Cock. Tongue. Hand. He wanted all of them inside her now. But tongue first. He didn’t want to eat her. He wanted to devour her. He tugged her closer to him and brought his mouth down on her vulva. There would be plenty of time for finesse later. Now he just wanted to fuck her with his tongue. He forced her legs wider and spread the folds out with his fingers. He found the hole and probed it with his tongue, licked it, burrowing his mouth into her body until her pussy was sealed to his face. Her hips bucked under his mouth, but he didn’t let her escape him. Her cries were loud and desperate. He could make her come in two seconds just by licking her clit, but he wanted more time with his tongue inside her and her pussy wrapped around his face.

  She was begging—please, please, please—but he ignored it. She would thank him for it later.

  Her wetness was better than wine or water. If she were his, Brad would never get enough of her taste. She’d want to leave the house, and he wouldn’t let her until he’d lifted her skirt and gotten a last taste of her, maybe slipping a finger in and licking it off before she walked out after a kiss, tasting herself on him. The fantasy of keeping her, ravaging her like this every night was so potent he shoved his hand into his pants to rub his cock.

  With one hand still on her, he carefully pulled back the hood of her clitoris and gave it all his attention.

  She was almost screaming. Low hungry animal sounds came from her throat. The tight knot pulsed against his tongue as he lapped at the little organ. He spared the quickest glance up to see her and was rewarded with the sight of her up on her elbows, red-faced, watching him. She was panting, strands of hair loose around her face. If she wanted a show, he would give her one. Or maybe two.

  He rolled his tongue around her clitoris. Her mouth fell open in a long moan. He kept at her, not relenting. He wanted her to come until she cried. When her head fell back, he pushed his fingers into her body. She came against his mouth, around his hand, the contractions so powerful they almost pushed him out of her body.

  But he wasn’t done.

  He lifted his head and stood up. He pulled off his t-shirt, took off his pants, then straddled her hips. He tore open her shirt and took his cock in his hand. She lay limp under him, spent, sweaty, and beautiful beyond words. He rubbed the head against her nipple. His hand was a piston on his shaft, working himself to release.

  It came fast, faster than he expected. The tension built until every muscle in his body was at the breaking point. Then it broke.

  He came, ejaculating onto her perfect small breasts, coating her in his semen, marking her. Each spurt sent pleasure rocketing through him, draining him. When it was over, he fell onto his hands and knees over her.

  Sheridan blinked heavy eyelids, reached her arms up and put them around his neck. He rested his forehead against hers and breathed each other’s breaths.

  He kissed her mouth once, softly, then pulled up again.

  “I’ll get something to clean you off,” he said.

  “Don’t. Please. Leave it on. Just…” She closed her eyes and went limp under him. The slightest smile danced at the corner of her mouth. “Leave it on forever.”

  ELEVEN

  Sheridan could have stayed here forever. Brad lay at her side, naked and glorious, while he massaged his semen into her skin. His hands felt enormous on her small breasts. Tall men usually intimidated her, but not Brad. He made her feel safe, not insignificant.

  “You’re so big,” she said with a happy sigh.

  “Thank you, kitten. I assume that was a compliment?”

  “Is a woman telling a man he’s big ever an insult?”

  “Not often.”

  “I just… We fit well together. Don’t we? Even though you’re so much bigger than I am.”

  His hand slid between her legs and cupped her vulva. “I like a girl who fits in the palm of my hand. And a girl who wants to fall asleep covered in my come. And a girl who won’t take off her collar even when given permission.”

  “Sounds like you like me,” she said.

  “I like you very much, Sheridan.” His hand roamed her thighs, coming to rest on her stomach. They were under his covers now in his bed. His big low bed in his surprisingly cozy bedroom. The walls were a stern dark blue, but the floors were honey-colored hardwood. A large bay window looked out onto his backyard. A tree branch, heavy with snow, swayed in the wind, and a light from somewhere—maybe the street—made the snow glow like it was illuminated from within.

  “I like you, too, Mr. Wolfe. Too much, probably.”

  “How much is too much?”

  She moved closer to him, hungry for his body. “You know,” she said. “Enough it’s going to hurt when I leave.”

  “I won’t make you leave.”

  She gave him a look. “I have to leave,” she said. “Right?”

  He only shrugged in that infuriating way men sometimes did when they wanted to seem cool and non-committal. “Do you?”