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“Thanks. And please thank Master Anthony and everyone for giving me another chance. I really appreciate that.”
They talked a while longer and then said their goodbyes. Lia promised not to be a stranger. After they hung up, she stayed on the floor, the phone cradled in her hand, staring at nothing.
Maybe sheshouldtake a ride up the mountain and hang out at The Enclave for a while. At least it would keep her from heading straight to Beau’s place. But, no. She didn’t have the heart or the energy to return to The Enclave right now. Beau’s ghost would be in every room, the memories too recent and too sharp to bear.
Plus, what if Beau had a change of heart? What if even now he was on his way to her, a bouquet of flowers in his hand, his gear bag over his shoulder?
“Ha,” she said aloud. “Hope is the thing with feathers that poops on your head the minute you step outside.”
After a long, hot shower, Lia dressed in a long-sleeved T-shirt and jeans and threw on her leather jacket. As she walked through the parking lot to her motorcycle she kept looking around, as if Beau’s Audi might appear at any moment.
It didn’t.
“Hope is the thing with feathers that laughs when you fall out of the nest,” she muttered.
Pulling on her helmet, she hopped on her cycle and rode over toDuck Donuts. She bought a baker’s dozen and a large cup of coffee to go. Back in her complex, she held her breath as she approached her apartment. He might be there right now waiting at the door, his face creased in apology.
“Hope is the thing with feathers that crashes into a plate glass window,” she snarled.
Balancing her coffee and donut box, she let herself back into her empty apartment. Setting down the box and cup near a beanbag chair, she retrieved her laptop from the kitchen counter where it had lain untouched since her week at The Enclave.
Flopping into the oversized bean bag, she grabbed a caramel nut crunch donut and turned on her computer. There were several work emails already in her box, including one from her new boss regarding the staff meeting that would be held at eight o’clock sharp Monday morning.
The timing was good. She would throw herself into her new job. She would go in early and stay late. She’d be so busy learning her new job that she’d barely think about Beau. At night, she’d head over to The Garden and find someone to scene with. After all, Beau certainly wasn’t the only Dom out there. Hell, maybe she’d even sign up for the auction they were holding at The Enclave next month. Lucia would have the inside scoop on the participants. Maybe the Dom of her dreams was already waiting for her. All she had to do was find him.
She hadn’t been looking for a Master or even a lover when she’d agreed to this past week of training. But being with Beau had reopened something inside her. And, despite the fact he’d been such a dick last night, she really had learned a lot from him.
Maybe it wouldn’t last, but she felt like a different person now. She had genuine flashes of calmness and serenity. Admittedly, she still had a way to go to approach anything like Lucia’s contented self-actualization. But the old Lia—the Lia before Master Beau—wouldn’t have hesitated to shoot off a series of scathing texts after Beau pulled his vanishing stunt. She would have stormed around her apartment, hurling things to the ground and screaming in her fury.
While she remained hurt and confused by his abrupt break with her, that kernel of inner calm he had helped her to uncover remained. She would focus on nurturing herfledgling feelings of submissive serenity, with or without him.
Hell, she’d even stopped biting her nails. True, there wasn’t yet enough to actually file or polish, but at least her cuticles were healing, no bloody, ragged edges begging to be chewed.
She reached for a second donut, this one maple bacon. As she bit into the salty sweet confection, she opened her personal email account. Hidden among the spam and bill reminders was an email from none other than Master Pain, the last asshole to break her heart.
No. Not her heart. Her ego.
The subject line of this new email read:Meet me at Alt.com. I’m a free man now, and ready to claim you properly.
Three months of her life she’d wasted on that bastard. Three months of being his online slave, given real life assignments until she “earned the right” to meet her Master in person. He’d been so darkly sexy, so utterly masterful online that she’d fallen for him, hook, line and sinker.
Finally, he’d decreed it was time for them to meet. She’d nearly died with anticipation, so happy to finally connect with the man who’d created such a compelling Master/slave world for her online. But each time they’d scheduled it, some crisis on his end had forced him to cancel—a sudden out of town business trip, an ill parent in need of his attention, a family function he couldn’t get out of.
She’d decided to take things into her own hands. They didn’t have to plan some fancy meeting. She would just show up at his place and fall into his waiting arms. On a whim, she punched his cell phone number into Google and, lo and behold—it listed the owner as Daniel Williams. A scroll through the tax rolls gave her his exact address, not ten miles from hers!
It took a while, but eventually she gathered her courage and drove to his house, the slave collar he’d sent her around her neck, her heart beating high in her throat. Parking in front of the house, she’d hooked her helmet over the handlebars and made her way up a neat path to his front door.
She rang the bell and then quickly lowered herself to a kneeling position, heart thumping, panties moistening in anticipation.
At the sound of the lock turning, she forgot how to breathe. After months of intensive online interaction, she was finally going to meet her Master in the flesh.
Then the door had opened, revealing a woman with a baby on her hip, a toddler clinging to her leg. She stared down in confusion at Lia, still kneeling like an idiot on the stoop.
“Can I help you?” she asked. “Are you hurt?”
Lia had leaped to her feet, heat flaming into her face as she tried to understand what was happening. Was this a relative? A roommate? Had Google been misinformed?
“No,” she stammered, trying to gather her wits. “I was looking for Daniel? Daniel Williams?”
