Finding Master Right(12)

She shifted her weight from one leg to the other. “No, it’s just that I have trouble following instructions if I don’t have a reason. If it’s just that you’re a pervert, I’d prefer to know that now.”

“It’s not my payment for teaching you, no, if that’s what you’re asking. It’s been my experience that when submissives aren’t allowed to wear underthings it makes them feel more sensual and helps them get into a submissive frame of mind. As for your hair being loose, that’s just because I’m a pervert.”

A giggle escaped her before she sighed heavily and drew a pattern on the floor with her bare toe. The blue polish on her toenails was unexpected and adorable.

Patience wasn’t going to be as effective with Kate as reasoning with her might be. She was new and he’d have to cut her some slack—a lot more than he’d give a girl he was actually involved with.

“Let me put it this way to you, Kate . . . If giving this tiny bit of control to your Dom is too much for you, we might as well end this arrangement now. I can’t teach you anything if you’re balking at something this small.” He shrugged. “Maybe you’re not submissive at all, or maybe you’re not strong enough to hand control over to someone else. It’s not something everyone is capable of doing.”

Banner turned and walked to one of the room’s leather armchairs, then sat and began looking over the papers she’d filled out. If she refused to do this, he’d escort her to the door. It was true that he wanted her more than he’d wanted anyone in a long time, but this was going to be temporary at best. There was no way he’d let himself get any deeper into this if she wasn’t giving anything back. Admittedly, if he was just training her in the fundamentals of BDSM he’d go easier on her. However, if she was looking for a Dom, they had to find out if there was even a hint of submission in her first. If Kate just wanted to play at this, she’d picked the wrong man to indulge her.

He pretended not to watch her as she stood there staring at him. Eventually, she walked out of the room, and he heard the bathroom door click shut.

Teacher: one; difficult student: zero. Although gloating wasn’t his style, Banner permitted himself a small smile as he scanned the paper in his hand.

When he reached the bottom of the page, he whistled low. Other than the hard limits on her checklist, she was willing to consider any amount of contact between them, up to and including sex. Well, that was going to make training her much more interesting.

Scrubbing a hand over his face, he tried to think about maintaining a level of distance and concentrate on what she needed to learn.

Focus, man. Ignore your dick.

With iron will he pulled his gaze away from the words “up to and including sex” and flipped to the next page. At the top of the checklist was anal, beside which she’d drawn a shaky circle around the word “curious,” instead of circling a scaling number. Damn, an anal virgin? He groaned aloud, his cock now completely hard and bent at an awkward angle in his jeans.

He’d leave that for her real Dom to do, right? He was a decent man. He could resist the temptation. In his mind, he pretended she’d circled “hard limit,” but his cock remained unconvinced. Who had taught the damn thing to read?

Aw, hell. Their kinks lined up. She’d circled scaling numbers or the word “curious” beside all of his favorites and had marked “hard limit” beside all of the things that turned him off. Several items she’d left blank.

“I needed clarification on some of those, and after searching the Internet for figging I was too scared to look anything else up.” She stood by the doorway, looking at the floor. Her loose hair had fallen forward to obscure her features from his view, but the bits of her face he could see were crimson. “And there were other things where I didn’t know how I felt about them.”

“That’s fine. You knew more than I thought you did.”

“I called Janine a few times.”

He chuckled. “The things you left blank probably aren’t things we’ll explore together anyway. Come sit in the chair next to me so we can talk.”

She trailed over after ditching her purse by the door, and he managed not to be a complete pervert and ogle her breasts as they swayed free under her tight T-shirt.

“Do we have to talk about it? Can’t you just give me a safeword and take it from there?”

“Communication is important in BDSM. If I don’t know what you like, what you dislike, and what your triggers are, it’s hard for me to make our time together educational and pleasurable for you.” He felt as if he were giving a guest lecture at a college. He didn’t think he had a teaching fetish, but this was interesting.

“Well, how come you don’t have to give me your checklist? Knowing you know all that stuff about me now is embarrassing.”

“Don’t be embarrassed, Trouble. Our kinks line up a little too well, so don’t worry about me judging you. In the kink community, people are very accepting, even if you’re into things they aren’t.”

“Your kink is not my kink, but your kink is okay?”

“Exactly. See, you know things.”

“Well, Janine tells me things, and I tend to remember the parts that sound important.” She sat in the chair next to his, staring at the blank television screen. “I still can’t believe I actually showed up today. I’ve been trying to psych myself up all week, but in the back of my mind I thought I’d chicken out.”

Fear he understood. Some of his underlying tension melted away. Her eyes were still hidden mostly by hair, so he tucked a lock of it behind her ear. “So what made you get in your car and come over?”

“I told myself I was going to the gym until I was sitting in your driveway. Ringing the doorbell was one of the hardest things I’ve done in my life.”

“I respect that this is a struggle for you. It’s impressive that you came anyway. Hopefully it’ll help you answer some questions about yourself, if nothing else.” He flipped through her questionnaire again briefly then laid the papers aside. “This gives me enough information to work with for now. Do you have a safeword in mind?”

“I thought Masters didn’t do safewords.”

“I do. I watch carefully, too, though. With most people you can tell when they’re getting close to their limit. It’s never my intention to hurt someone past what they can bear. Leaving emotional scars isn’t one of my kinks.” He was a safe, sane, and consensual guy when it came to BDSM, but he knew some people who weren’t. They were generally the asshats who gave BDSM a bad name. Banner drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair once before he caught himself. A strong desire to move things along was making him impatient, but rushing her wouldn’t be fair. “Besides, you haven’t agreed to be my slave. But even if you did, with me you get a safeword.”

Shit. Had he really just implied she might agree to be his slave at some point? It was as though he’d left a huge yet hanging over them. Nothing like making the girl uncomfortable by laying his cards on the table.

“If I was eager to try being a slave, what would you do?”

He smiled, wondering if his metaphorical fangs were evident. “We would need to have a long discussion about what that meant to both of us, and we’d have to see whether we were suitable for each other.”

“So BDSM is all consensual, then?” Her eyebrows rose, as if she didn’t believe it.

“In the mainstream BDSM community, yes. It may not always feel that way to the slave, but in reality the option to walk away is always there.” He let some of the darkness within him show in his expression. “Of course there are people who live on the fringes of BDSM who blur the lines.”

“Do you blur the lines?”

Deliberately he paused, enjoying the hint of apprehension he saw in her face. Being a bastard was fun, but since she didn’t know him well, he wasn’t sure how seriously she’d take it.

“No. My slaves are free to leave me if that’s what they want.” The last few hadn’t really been slaves anyway, which had been frustrating for both parties.

“Have a lot of slaves chosen to leave you?”

“In the past few years I’ve ended relationships with a few women who told me they were slaves, but were actually submissives who thought slavery sounded dangerous and exciting. The reality wasn’t something they adjusted to very well.” Being asked to submit outside of the bedroom hadn’t gone over well. His old frustrations welled up, but dwelling on how difficult it was to find someone to suit him, someone who wanted what he wanted, didn’t fix the problem.

She turned to look at him, her eyes round. “So you’re strict?”

“Very.”

“Are you going to punish me a lot?” She wet her lips.

He could almost feel the smooth wooden handle of the tawse in his hand. Fuck. When he was around this girl his imagination was like live-streaming porn.

“That depends on if you’re a good girl or a bad girl.”

A small whimper escaped her, and the sound went straight to his groin.

“Do you like pain, Kate, or is it the idea of being punished?”