AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Mason shrugged. “There’s a whole fetish community into it. It’s safe enough, if you know what you’re doing. But I wasn’t comfortable with it, especially not back then. Long story short, she found someone who was. It really knocked me for a loop. I was devastated as only a twenty-year-old with a broken heart can be. It took me a long time to get back into the scene, much less get involved with another woman.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Mason. That sounds rough,” Hannah touched his arm briefly, her fingertips leaving a trail of heat on his skin.
He snorted. “Yeah. But it probably saved my culinary career. So, there’s that.”
“Silver lining,” Hannah replied, smiling. “I like to think of those, too. Keeps me going.”
He smiled back, marveling not only at her cuteness, but at how much it charmed him. His well-deserved reputation as an old curmudgeon was going to tarnish at this rate. He might even have to cast it aside after all these years.
“I guess my point in telling you about Carla is that I get it. BDSM is a continuum, and we’re all at different places along that continuum. Maybe you’re right, and you’re not ‘slave material’ as you say. Or maybe we were approaching it all wrong.”
“All wrong?”
“From a trainer/trainee standpoint instead of…” He hesitated, not quite believing he was about to say this, and then deciding, fuck it. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. “…of lovers.” As her eyes again widened, he plunged on, “I heard what you said, and I get it. I do. This is new for both of us. But there was something there, Hannah. I know you felt it too. You ran away before we could explore what that might be. Please, Hannah. Just give me—giveusa chance. That’s all I’m asking.”
Hannah was quiet for a long time. Too long. Mason bit his lip to keep from demanding an answer—the right answer. He gripped his mug so he wouldn’t reach for her.
Finally, she spoke, her gaze fixed on a spot on the table in front of her. “I’ve spent the past two weeks trying to put you out of my mind. Now, suddenly you’re here, bigger than life, saying all the things I thought I was longing to hear. I believe you mean what you say, but I’m afraid if we start this again, we’re going to run into the same brick walls.”
When he started to protest, she met his gaze and held up a hand, silencing him.
“No, hear me out. You’re a hardcore Dom who wants a 24/7 slave girl. As sexy as it sounds as a fantasy, and as much as I wanted to try it, it’s just not who I am. I can’t be the woman you want me to be.” Again, she dropped her gaze, bowing her head as if in defeat.
Mason forced his fingers to uncurl their death grip on the mug before he shattered it. His knee-jerk impulse was to tell her to trust him—that he knew what she needed better than she did. But that was the old Mason—the pre-Hannah Mason. The one who wore his dominance like armor.
She wasn’t asking him tofixthings, to make them right by sheer force of will. She was expressing her heart. Maybe it was time he found the courage to express his.
Why was it so damned hard? Somehow, this newbie, this innocent, had laid him bare. He’d never felt so vulnerable in his life. Was this what love was?
He reached for her, placing a finger beneath her chin to raise her face to his. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears and his heart twisted with tenderness and longing.
“I hate to see you sad,” he said gently. “I hate to think I’m the one who did that to you.”
A single tear rolled down her cheek. He swiped it gently with his thumb. “This is new for me, Hannah. I’m not used to expressing my feelings. Shit, I’m not used to acknowledging that I even have any.”
She managed a smile at that. He smiled back, determined now to express the words in his heart. “You know, before I met you I would have agreed with you about what I needed to be fulfilled. I really believed a 24/7 Master/slave relationship was what I required. But your leaving the way you did—it threw me for a loop. It forced me to take a step back and examine what it was Iactuallywant at this point in my life.”
He took a breath, determined to get past his ingrained habit of saying the bare minimum when it came to his feelings. This mattered too much. Hannah mattered too much.
“Here’s what I figured out, and what I need to tell you. What you do with it will be up to you. But I owe it to you—to myself—to be completely honest, no matter the outcome.”
His heart was now pounding so hard he thought it might thump right out of his chest. “I don’t want a 24/7 slave girl. I wantyou. I want you in my life. I’ll do whatever it takes to make that happen.” He swallowed hard and plunged on, “I’m falling in love with you, Hannah. Not some idealized version of you as a perfect slave girl. You—just as you are.”
There. He’d done it. He’d laid his soul out there for her. He had nothing left to offer.
“Oh, Mason,” Hannah breathed, her hands fluttering to her chest. “I don’t know what to say. This is all so new for me, too. But I think…” she trailed off.
Mason forced himself to be still, when all he wanted to do was rush to her and take her in his arms. Instead, he prompted softly, “You think…?”
“I think I might be falling in love, too. With you,” she whispered.
Now he did rise, moving around the table to her. He held out his hand and she took it, allowing him to pull her upright. Heart singing, he pulled her close, gathering her tightly against his chest.
She melted against him with a sigh. If he could just stand there forever with her enfolded in his arms, it would be enough.
Then she lifted her face, eyes closing as her lips parted in a clear invitation for a kiss.
Maybe life did imitate art sometimes, after all.
