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“Half a dozen, Master?”
“Maybe a dozen.”
“That seems more likely.”
He pulled away and I was s
truck anew by the love and desire in his eyes. “Now come with me and we’ll have a little picnic in bed. And if you’re really worried about my strength, you can feed me a bite or two.”
I felt almost giddy climbing into bed. He propped me up on the pillows and fluffed a few around me. I felt like a princess.
“Take the robe off, Abigail.”
Okay, I felt like a naked princess. But I shrugged out of the robe, just slightly peeved that he kept his clothes on. Not that I minded being naked; I just wanted him to be naked, too. I enjoyed looking at his body, imagining all the things he could do to me, remembering the way he tasted.
“Are you with me?” he asked. “You look like you’re someplace else.”
“I’m imagining you naked.”
“I’d rather be naked, but you had an intense afternoon and you need some rest.”
I raised an eyebrow. “I feel fine.”
He lifted the dome off the tray and started filling a plate with almonds and blue cheese. “You don’t know what I have planned for tomorrow.”
That was enough to shut me up and he laughed at my shocked expression. “Don’t look so scared. You handled today—you can take tomorrow.”
His mention of the next day reminded me of a question I had. “I was thinking, if you didn’t have other plans for me in the morning, that I’d call Julie and see if I could interview her for the blog.”
“Julie, Daniel’s submissive?” He fed me an almond.
I chewed, then said, “Yes, she’s new to the lifestyle and recently collared. I thought she’d make a nice contrast to my normal posts.”
“You mean since you’re a veteran and have been collared forever?”
I took the block of cheese he handed me. “Something like that.”
“I don’t have a problem with that. I can arrange what I had planned for another day.” He took a sip of wine. “In fact, I think that’s a great idea and will mesh nicely with what I have planned.”
“I don’t even want to know, do I?”
“Probably not.”
* * *
I met Julie late the next morning at a café not far from the hotel. She’d obviously been at work at her flower shop; she wore a pink polo shirt with PETAL PUSHERS embroidered on the front.
“Love the name of your shop,” I said, sitting down in a plush brown chair.
“Thanks. We wanted something people would remember.” She took a sip of her latte and sighed. “Mmm, that is so good. We’ve been so busy this morning, I didn’t even get a chance to make a pot. And I stayed at Daniel’s last night and we got up late . . . Well, it was late when we got out of bed. We actually woke up early.”
Her matter-of-fact attitude about it made me smile. “I remember those days.”
“You say that like you don’t have them anymore.”
“We really don’t. It’s hard with the kids and all.”
She nodded and took another sip of her latte. “How’s the week going?”
“Good. Lots of new experiences. I’ll have plenty to write about—that’s for sure.” I took out my notebook and flipped it open to a blank page. “Like I said on the phone, I want to keep this really casual. I won’t use your name or anything that can identify you and if you don’t want to answer a particular question, you won’t hurt my feelings. You said you met Daniel when he came into your flower shop. Did you know he was a Dom then?”
“Oh, no,” she said. “I had no idea, but when he left, my friend and business partner, Sasha, tried to steer me away from him.”
“Didn’t work, did it?” I asked with a grin.
“No.” Her smile was full of the love she felt for her Dominant. “We couldn’t stay away from each other. Even though it wasn’t until I attended a group meeting with Sasha that I discovered he was a Dom.”
“You went to a group meeting?”
“I’d always been curious and Sasha was . . . is a submissive.”
“I see,” I said, even though I wasn’t clear on the Sasha details; was she a sub or wasn’t she?
“Daniel introduced me to the lifestyle slowly and carefully. Sometimes, I think I’m ready for things, but he holds me back and makes me wait. I don’t always like it, but I’d be lying if I said he wasn’t almost always right.”
“Pesky Doms.”
She laughed. “Yes.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, how long have you and Daniel been together?”
“About four or five months.” She ran a finger along the edge of her collar. “I’ve been collared for about a month.”
I nodded and jotted that down. To be honest, I had no idea she was so new to the lifestyle. But her enthusiasm was like a breath of fresh air.
“You really have embraced your submissive nature,” I said. “Was it easy to accept?”
“Hell, no.” She laughed. “I actually turned my back on it for a while. But it felt like I was living a lie. I couldn’t give it up and still be me, you know? It was almost as if I was playacting at not being submissive.”
I jotted her words down. “That’s an interesting way to put it. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone describe it quite that way. But it’s true—it would be like a part of yourself was missing.”
She nodded. “I’d have lost Daniel, too. He said he’d still have dated me even if I wasn’t submissive, but I couldn’t have asked him to ignore that side of his nature.”
“I don’t have to ask what it’s like having your first Dom be so much more experienced than you are. I was like that, too.”
“I think it’s better someone knows what they’re doing,” she said with a laugh. “That’s one of the benefits of belonging to a group—you get to pull from everyone’s experiences. The only problem with ours is like I told you—there aren’t any long-term couples.”
“That is a shame. Our group in New York has several.”
“Including you,” she said.
“We haven’t been very active the last few years. Since the kids were born.”
“You’re still around if someone needs you though. That counts for something. And you’re helping a lot of people with the blog. I hope I can help people one day.”
Julie was easy to talk with; she was down-to-earth, intelligent, and lively. It didn’t take much to see why she’d captured the eye of someone like Daniel.
“You’re helping now,” I told her. “With the interview. Who knows? Maybe there’ll be a woman browsing through blogs looking for someone who’s taken the leap and she’ll come across the piece I write on you.”
She smiled and twirled her coffee cup. “That’s a good way to look at it.”
The café was relatively quiet with only a few people inside with us. We’d been talking in low voices and Julie had just finished sharing about her collaring ceremony when the door opened and we both jumped.
“Julie!” a tall, willowy blond woman called, approaching our corner seats. “Sasha said I’d find you here. Sorry to interrupt. Can I speak to you for a minute?”
Julie jumped up. “Are you okay?”
Whoever the woman was, she looked beautiful in an ethereal, angelic way. Her blond hair danced around her shoulders in loose waves and her eyes were a warm blue. She spoke animatedly to Julie for several minutes while I checked messages on my phone to give them privacy. The two ladies hugged and turned to me once again.
“Hi, I’m Dena,” the blonde said. “Again, I’m so sorry to crash like this, but I’m traveling the rest of the week and had to speak
