Contents

Cover

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Exclusive sample chapter

Copyright

About the Publisher

Chapter One

Even with the blindfold on I knew without a shadow of a doubt that it was Max. There was no mistaking him. It couldn’t be anyone else. I recognised the way he moved around me, the sound of his breathing and the scent of his aftershave – a subtle blend of sandalwood and musk that was so familiar it made my mouth water.

I knew him so well that I could practically feel him, and I knew that, whatever happened, with Max there I would be safe and that we would have a good time. More than a good time – we’d have a great time.

I smiled. My sense of relief was mixed with anticipation and an unexpected ache in my heart. Up until that moment I hadn’t realised just how much I had missed him. It had been too long.

He moved in closer and whispered my name, tracing my lips with a single finger. The sound of his voice brought tears to my eyes. I wanted to say something to him, but I knew the rules. Submissives only speak when they are spoken to or given permission to speak. Whispering my name was no permission at all.

A cool breeze made me shiver. Behind the blindfold I closed my eyes and drank in Max’s touch. He was an expert when it came to knowing how and where to touch me. My pulse quickened as his fingers moved on, stroking my jaw, outlining the curve of my ear, sliding up into my hair. At first it was just the lightest of touches, so delicate that it made my skin tingle, but I knew Max. There would be more. There was always more with Max. His particular gift was the way he could combine pain with pleasure and still have me begging for more. His fingers tightened, twisting my hair into a firm knot, making me gasp as he pulled me close up against him.

‘I’ve missed you, Sarah,’ he murmured.

I could feel his breath on my skin and the heat of his body as he cupped my breast with his other hand, caressing the nipple that hardened under his touch, his long nimble fingers teasing and pinching it, making me moan with pleasure and increasing my anticipation of what might follow. My whole body was responding to him, coming alive under his caress. I could feel the desire rising from somewhere deep inside me. I wanted Max so much – it felt like forever since we had been together. I moaned softly, letting go, surrendering to him.

Max murmured his approval and whispered words of endearment as his hand moved lower, down over my ribs, brushing my hips and moving down across my stomach, working its way down over the rise of my sex and sliding unhindered between my legs.

God, this was wonderful. I threw back my head and gasped as he stroked me, his touch at its most tender and knowing, caressing me, making me writhe with pure pleasure. It was the sweetest torture as he explored the soft folds of my sex. I let out a little sob of pleasure as his fingertips finally found my clitoris.

As his fingers found their rhythm I leaned against him, relishing the sensation of his strong muscular body, moaning with sheer delight, feeling every caress, every knowing touch, feeling the pleasure intensify, building and building, bringing me closer and closer to the edge. Finally I cried out and, unable to hold back and breaking all the rules, called out his name.

Even before the sound was out I was instantly awake, torn from sleep, denied the impending climax. I found myself sitting bolt upright in bed, cold and shocked and trembling like a leaf. I looked round, trying to get my bearings. The room was empty, the only light came from the street lamp across the road, throwing a jaundiced yellow stripe across the bedroom floor.

The images and sensations had been so vivid that for a moment I couldn’t believe I’d imagined them. I felt like I’d been robbed and reached out in the darkness, a part of me still convinced that Max might be there somewhere, despite knowing that I had only dreamed him. Unsurprisingly, all that was there was darkness, the only sound the tick-tick-tick of my bedroom clock. I stretched out further, feeling my way across the bed, but it was cold and empty.

I lay there for a while thinking about him and trying to get back to sleep, snuggling down under the duvet, trying to relax, but it was impossible. The harder I tried the more awake I felt. Eventually I gave up, switched on the bedside lamp, pulled on a robe and went downstairs to make some tea and try to clear my head.

Max and I had split up months ago, but this was the first time since then that I had dreamed about him and certainly the first time I’d ever been so aroused while sleeping. I could still feel the dull ache of unsatisfied longing, still there, low down in my belly.

I’m a writer, and alongside romantic novels I’ve written erotic fiction for years, including lots about BDSM (bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism), but after a lifetime of fantasy it had been Max who had finally taken me by the hand and introduced me to the real-life delights of being a submissive. My relationship with Max had been a steep learning curve. He was a Dom (BDSM shorthand for the dominant partner) and under his guidance I had finally found a safe place to explore the submissive fantasies that had haunted me all my adult life.

I’d spent half a lifetime thinking about and then finally writing about the world of BDSM without so much as stepping over the threshold – until I met Max, that is. Fresh out of a marriage, I had decided that it was now or never and had put an ad on a BDSM website. Over the course of several weeks I’d met lots of men who were keen to help me explore my sexually submissive ideas, but in the end it was Max I chose as my first ever real-life Master, and, even though our relationship was over and had been for months, there was a part of me that still loved him.

Under his tutelage I had explored a whole new world of delight, of pleasure and pain and fun, and discovered a level of intimacy that I had never experienced inside a vanilla relationship. Even though it was me who had finally called it a day, Max was going to be a very hard act to follow. He had been a friend and lover as well as a Master. The truth was, I missed him. A lot.

Since he and I had split up I’d been window-shopping on some of the mainstream dating websites as well as the BDSM ones, but I hadn’t felt inspired to post a profile – as I said, Max was going to be a hard act to follow. So instead I hunkered down and got on with the business of being single, not feeling quite ready or emotionally robust enough to launch myself back out onto the dating scene, not really having the energy or the inclination to start over – until now, that is. Because the day after dreaming of Max was the day I’d arranged to have my first date with another potential Dom. I couldn’t help wondering if that was what had sparked the dream in the first place.

Finding any new relationship is tough enough without the added pressure of finding a man you would trust enough to tie you up. I had been persuading myself that maybe Max was a one-off, a mad fling, a crazy notion. The problem was: what came next? Where did I go from there? Was there a way back to normal?

When we first started seeing each other, Max had warned me even before we started our relationship that going back to straight sex and a vanilla relationship after tasting the delights of BDSM and the intensely intimate connection between Master and submissive was close to impossible.

So there I’d been, still smarting from splitting up with Max, unable or more accurately unwilling to go back to him and not quite ready to go forward, when the phone rang.

I’d been working in my office on a new book. The caller display read ‘number withheld’. I wondered if it might be Gabbie, one of my best and oldest friends, and also regularly single. I’d left her a voicemail suggesting that it was high time we got together and had a girls’ night in or out, and I promised not to cry as long as she promised not to give every man in the bar a score out of ten, so I was surprised when a male voice said, ‘Hi, is that Sarah?’

I hesitated. ‘Yes, it is. Who’s speaking?’

‘I don’t know if you remember me. My name’s Alex. We spoke a while back about your ad.’

‘We did? What ad?’ I was racking my brains. It had been a long time since I’d put an ad on any of the straight or BDSM dating websites, and I’d never advertised anything anywhere else.

‘Oh, I’m sorry. Maybe I’ve got the wrong number. It was a while ago now. You were looking for a Dom.’

‘And we spoke?’ I said cautiously. I had taken down my personal ad when I’d started seeing Max regularly and, as I said, I hadn’t felt anywhere near ready to put it back up on the site since we split up, so if Alex was right we’d spoken a long, long time ago.

‘Only very briefly,’ Alex said. ‘You were just off to meet someone and said you didn’t think it was fair to talk to me until you’d met him. Anyway, I was going through my inbox just now, saw your name and thought I’d give you a ring.’ He laughed. ‘Nothing ventured …’

While he was talking I opened my email and typed ‘Alex’ into the search engine to see if I could find his original mail.

‘To be perfectly honest I’m not really looking at the moment,’ I said, eyes working down the list of names. His name wasn’t there, although that didn’t necessarily mean anything; after meeting Max I had deleted most if not all of the other contenders, so it wasn’t all that surprising.

‘Bad experience?’ asked Alex. It was interesting that he didn’t assume I was living happily ever after in nipple clamps and handcuffs.

‘No, not at all. Just –’ I felt around for the right words. How did you explain a fragile, needy ex-girlfriend with a child and a good man with a big heart desperately trying to do the right thing by everyone involved? It was a long story and certainly not one I intended to go into during the first phone call with someone I didn’t know.

‘Complicated?’ Alex suggested.

‘Kind of, yes,’ I said, wondering why I didn’t just hang up.

‘Me too. I was chatting to this woman online for a couple of months, Annabel. She sounded perfect. Anyway, we arranged to meet, and it turned out she was a bloke, Archie – fourteen stone, five feet two, buck teeth and –’

He caught me completely off-guard and I laughed. ‘You’re joking.’

Alex laughed too. ‘Yes, actually, I am, but not completely. I started seeing someone and I discovered pretty quickly that she was married and just looking for a bit of kinky fun on the side, which is not what I’m looking for. I was wondering, how about we meet up for lunch and swap horror stories?’

Now it was my turn to laugh again. ‘That’s a bit of a leap.’

‘True, but not that much, and I’m not a stalker or a loony. I’ve been divorced four years and I’ve spent a lifetime thinking about this. And I’m a newbie too, so it would be good to talk to someone who is looking for the same thing, wouldn’t it?’

‘Which is what?’

‘True love, world peace and to be able to play the guitar like Ry Cooder?’

‘I’m not sure about world peace,’ I said, amused and charmed and almost convinced.

‘Okay. So how about you tell me some more about yourself,’ Alex said.

‘Haven’t we already done this?’ I asked.

‘Probably, but it was a long time ago now. I’ve probably forgotten all the interesting bits. How about we do it again. Do you like fish?’

‘What?’ I’m sure if he had asked me that before I would have remembered. ‘Is this one of your standard getting-to-know-you questions?’

‘No.’ He laughed. ‘It’s just that I’ve got a friend who runs this great little seafood restaurant down on the coast. I was thinking that we could maybe meet there, have a nice lunch, interview each other, decide it was all a horrible mistake and head home older but wiser. What do you think?’ He told me the place he meant and I Googled it as we spoke. It wasn’t that far from me and maybe, I reasoned, getting out and about would do me good, help me heal the big painful scar that splitting up with Max had left. If nothing else, once I had decided he was a total no-no, I could always take a walk on the beach.

‘We could road test the new season’s menu,’ Alex was saying. ‘They do a really good sharing platter.’

‘And you need someone to share with?’ I suggested.

‘Got it in one.’ I liked the sound of his voice. But there was a part of me that had been thinking that the last thing I needed right now was another man in my life. I was still feeling mangled. I’d already thought maybe it was time to kick back, take time out, give up on men and get some cats. It seemed a lot more appealing than getting my heart broken all over again.

‘I’m not sure –’ I began.

Alex laughed. ‘No, me neither. How about we just give it a go? I promise not to be weird,’ he said.

I hesitated. Oh, what the hell. It was ages since I had been out with a man, ages since I’d been anywhere actually. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘But the first hint of weirdness and I’m out of there.’

‘Good call,’ said Alex. ‘When do you fancy meeting up? Are you free this weekend?’

‘This weekend?’

‘Too soon?’

‘No, no, I’m happy to meet up.’ What I meant was that I was happy to meet up and get it over with. First time around it had taken me dozens of coffees, dates and lunches with would-be Doms before I met Max.

For me, as with any relationship, there has to be some kind of attraction there, some kind of chemistry between a Dom and a sub, and you don’t know if it’s there until you actually meet someone face to face. Even getting along well on the phone is really no guarantee that that magic something is there.

First time around with online dating, both with vanilla and BDSM, I’d realised very early on that if you don’t meet someone fairly quickly you run the risk of making whoever you are talking to into whatever it is you are looking for, filling in the gaps with your imagination, expectations and hopes. It’s always much, much better to meet any hopefuls quickly rather than be desperately disappointed later.

And if my previous experiences of online dating were anything to go by, the likelihood of Alex being the one or of us having that immediate chemistry were close to zero, but it would be good to go out, have a nice meal, meet someone new and get on to the next bit of the healing process. Maybe I should see meeting Alex as a good practice run, a way of getting back up on the horse.

So, while Alex chatted, I went through the motions of opening my diary and flicking through the pages, giving myself time to think, wondering whether I really was ready to start over.

Did I really want a relationship based on BDSM? Did I want to play again? The truthful answer was yes, and unless I planned to spend the rest of my life alone I had to get out there. There was no way I was going to find a relationship – BDSM or otherwise – by running scared and hiding away in my office, so meeting up with Alex seemed as good a place to start as any.

‘How about Sunday?’ I suggested, in a tone that I hoped implied I might just be able to squeeze him into my hectic social calendar.

‘Great. Sunday’s fine,’ Alex said. ‘Shall we say one o’clock?’

‘Okay.’

‘I’ve still got your email address here. I’ll book us a table with a sea view and email you a map.’

‘Okay, sounds like a plan.’

He laughed. ‘So far, so good. Do you want me to hang up now?’ he asked.

‘Maybe, unless you’ve got something interesting to say, or are you saving that for Sunday?’

‘Oh, very sharp,’ he said, aping a wince. ‘I’ll go. I don’t want to use up all my best lines.’

‘Alex, wait,’ I said hastily. I had no idea who he was or what he was into and couldn’t, truth be told, ever remember talking to him before.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘Would you mind sending me your profile again? I don’t think I kept it,’ I said, hoping that he wouldn’t be offended.

‘Of course I can.’ And this time the laughter was even louder. ‘Good job I’m thick-skinned, isn’t it?’ he said. Seconds later his profile dropped into my inbox.

And so, after the dream about Max had woken me, it was Alex’s profile that I was reading while sitting in my kitchen, cradling a mug of tea, at three o’clock in the morning with my laptop open on the table, trying very, very hard to get Max out my mind. I hadn’t consciously thought about him for weeks and had resisted the temptation to ring, text or email him. The problem was that Max had been my passport into another world, one I had thought about for years and, against my better judgement and good sense, I had fallen for him hard and fast. I’d expected quite a lot of things from BDSM, but falling in love really hadn’t been one of them.

Looking at it now in the cool, clear light of dawn, I wasn’t sure if it was because of who Max was or what he had offered me. One thing was for sure; I was very determined to take it a lot slower next time. It wasn’t that love wasn’t on the agenda, it was just that this time I’d be more cautious.

But love or no love, meeting Max had had a profound effect on me. Oddly enough, exploring submission in my private life had helped me feel far more confident and at ease with myself in my normal everyday life, as if by being at ease with my sexuality I had finally come home to who I truly was. It felt good, as if all sorts of dispiriting thoughts and feelings inside my head had finally fallen into place.

Among other things, Max had given me the confidence to let go, to enjoy our sexual encounters as a game, a rich complex role-play where a person could explore all of who they were – and with the right person it could be as heady as any drug. That night’s dream had come as a complete revelation, it had seemed so vivid and painfully real. I was obviously missing him, and the sexual satisfaction that he brought me, much more than I had realised. If I closed my eyes I could still feel the brush of Max’s fingertips on my flesh.

I made an effort to turn my attention back to the screen of my laptop and to Alex’s online profile. It said that he was six feet tall, blond, a divorcee in his late forties with grown-up children and his own home. He listed things he liked out in the real world and those he wanted to explore in the BDSM world. Ropes and gags and blindfolds: a list of things that excited me and also made me slightly nervous, all neatly laid out in a little table of preferences. Alongside what he liked or wanted to try, Alex had listed his hard limits, which were pretty standard: no blood, no blades, no needles, no breath-play, no minors and nothing between him and any partner that wasn’t consensual. Sane, safe and consensual. One of the mantras of BDSM play.

He also said he was respectful of any limits, pain threshold, likes and dislikes, although like most Doms he’d try to push the boundaries sometimes, but would honour an agreed safe word that when spoken would stop play immediately. Apparently he had no hang-ups, and in a perfect world was looking for a real relationship that had BDSM at its core. It sounded like the idea I had been toying with – a real-life relationship, but with a BDSM twist that would flavour any encounters and spice up the physical side of things.

Which brought me right back to Max, who had said that sustaining a long-term relationship that could encompass both was close to impossible. A good Dom and sub relationship was based on respect, a sense of formality and a slight distance. What respect would I have for my Dom if we were over-familiar, if I saw him stretched out on the sofa in tracksuit bottoms or had to try to persuade him to take the bins out? Familiarity, Max had argued, really did breed contempt and destroyed the Dom-sub dynamic.

It was this that, despite loving the thrill of submission and enjoying our time together, had given me mixed feelings about Max and how long we could last as a couple. He had told me early on that he was looking for a relationship where the role-play never ended. While we were together he would always be the Dom and I, his partner, the sub – whatever happened, wherever we were, there would be no let up, no time off; we would always be in role.

True, sometimes the atmosphere was lighter, sometimes more intense, but the bottom line was that Max didn’t want the easy familiarity of everyday life with a partner so much as the charge, the thrill of the heady sexual and social encounters that the BDSM lifestyle brought him. More to the point, for Max BDSM was the only truly satisfying way for him to enjoy a sexual relationship. He found vanilla sex dull and unsatisfying.

Even when I was with him – and we had some fabulous times – I was always concerned, because I knew without a shadow of a doubt that, much as I loved it, I couldn’t live full time within a strict BDSM relationship. I wasn’t sure anyone could, but what had rapidly become apparent to me was that, while I did need, like and enjoy that Dom-sub dynamic, in an ideal world what I wanted was someone who could play and then slip back into normal life. It was a big, big ask.

Reading Alex’s profile, looking at what he liked and enjoyed, it was all pretty standard stuff. There was certainly nothing on there that set alarm bells ringing. Unusually, Alex had also sent a full-face photo, and he looked okay – more than okay. He had a rugged, nicely made face, with a strong jawline and big blue eyes. In a second photo he had sent he looked as if he might be on holiday. He was casually dressed and standing in a bar, with the people around him carefully cropped out and pixelated. What did shine through from both the photographs and his profile was a sense of warmth and good humour. The way he wrote was bright and intelligent, and the profile was carefully put together.

So, I knew what Alex looked like, he didn’t sound like a loony, he sounded like he might be good company and I was happy to be going; so why the dream about Max? I glanced outside into the grey light of the new day trying to analyse it. Unfinished business maybe? One last fond look at what might have been? I wasn’t sure, but I did know that it was too early to be up worrying about what had happened in the past and what the future might hold. I couldn’t go back to what I had with Max, I had to move on, and meeting Alex was the first step. The sooner I took it, the sooner I could get on with the rest of my life. So I switched off my laptop and headed back upstairs to bed. Within moments of slipping beneath the duvet I dropped into a deep, dreamless sleep.

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