“What do you want me to buy, Mistress?”
Her fingers moved to the inside of his thigh. He shifted to accommodate her, so she could tease his testicles as she lifted her other hand in greeting to Justin. “Pick me out something you know I’d like. And no cheating. No asking Justin or another customer for help.”
With that, she stepped out of the car, leaving him watching the distracting sway of her ass in the snug denim as she went to greet Justin. The man met her with a warm embrace, Mac noted, married or not. He decided it was time to get out of the car. A guy who owned a women’s sex shop might have some different ideas about monogamy.
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“Justin, Mac. Mac, Justin.” Violet introduced them. “I’m going to go enjoy your garden, Justin, and Mac is going to decide what would please me.” She caressed Mac’s forearm. “He’s learning to be very good at pleasing me.” Justin’s dark eyes shifted to Mac. It was the first time any Mistress had exerted her Dominance publicly over him, and lust warred with discomfort, his body roused by her obvious claim stake even as he felt embarrassed to be revealed as such to another man outside the strict structure of a place like The Zone or Tyler’s. But when he left the two of them chatting in the garden and stepped into Justin’s shop, he realized Justin was already keyed in to the dynamics that ruled their type of erotic play.
Every item in the shop—lingerie, play toys, costumes, videos and erotic romances, even bath oils and soaps—were selected to further a woman’s erotic fantasies, including some very classy and high-priced bondage toys and restraint devices.
Mac’s lips twitched at a butt plug with a horse tail. With her equine fetish, she might like that, but he damn well wasn’t picking it out for her. He’d let her discover that one on her own and then torture him with the threat of it. Which, with her sadistic streak, he wouldn’t put past her. He grinned at the thought. As he passed his fingers over a soft camisole, he remembered the texture of her skin beneath his, the arch of her throat, her cries as she came, the clutch of her fingers on his arms, his hips. The smell of her hair, her half-smile.
“It’s hard to know what to get for a woman when you want to give her everything, isn’t it?”
Justin had apparently stepped into the doorway while he was touching the garment, staring into space. Mac realized he had a tight, crushing grip on the soft fabric and he released the satin, making an awkward attempt to smooth it.
“It is,” he agreed shortly.
“Do you want a suggestion?”
Mac opened his mouth, closed it, gave a shake of his head.
“She forbade you to ask for help.”
That definitely pushed way past the threshold of his comfort zone, and made itself uncomfortably at home in the living room of his psyche. So he shrugged. He wouldn’t lie, but he wouldn’t, couldn’t engage a man like Justin Herne on this issue. “I have to know what it is,” he said. “That’s the point.” Justin nodded. “I’ll leave you to it, then,” he said. He stepped forward, placed a brief hand on Mac’s shoulder, met his eyes from an equal height. “Take care of her.
She’s very special to us.”
As another customer came in, he turned away, and Mac watched him slip into the mode of the warm, professional shopkeeper. He shifted his gaze to the window and found his Mistress sitting on a bench amid the early autumn flowers of the courtyard garden, gazing into the sparkling ripples of a fountain. The sun was making her a bit sleepy, and she laid her head on her hand, turning sideways on the bench so she could watch the fountain and let her thoughts wander where they would. All she needed 113
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were wings and a sprinkling of dust across her cheeks and he’d easily imagine her as a garden fairy, alighting in this sensual, quiet place to dream dreams only fairies understood. Of butterfly princes, rides on the backs of swallows, or naps taken in the cradle of a blooming rose.
As the customer brushed past him with a murmured, “Excuse me,” and a lingering, appreciative glance, he realized he’d been drifting himself, just standing there watching her for nearly ten minutes.
As if she sensed his attention, Violet’s head rose, and she looked his way. She studied him with serious eyes, then lifted her hand, pressed her lips to her palm and blew a kiss.
Watching those delicate fingers, that moist mouth press against her skin, a warmth swept through him, as if she’d blown pixie dust to him in truth. He smiled, lifted a hand and turned to find something that would make his fairy queen happy.
* * * * *
Violet opened her eyes at a feather light touch on her calf.
Mac sat on the ground next to the small bench, one leg crooked up, his fingers cupped over his knee while his other hand played lightly with her calf. The bench was small, but he could have sat with her. He hadn’t. He had waited at her feet, patiently, for her to wake.
She feigned a casual stretch, aware of his eyes coursing over the tilt of her breasts as she did so. “I didn’t mean to nod off on you,” she said.
It was surprising to have to admit to herself that she was flustered as much as pleased by his devotion to her needs. It was one thing to have it in The Zone or at Tyler’s, where the environment demanded and expected it. She knew she had thrown down the gauntlet when she had introduced him to Justin in the way she did. He had met the test, accepting her unspoken desire to have him embrace his submissive role in a semi-public manner with barely a hitch in his stride, and he’d stayed in it, as if he had taken her actions as an unspoken command to do so until she said otherwise. It was unsettling, but undeniably arousing.
She stroked his neck, ran her hand through the thick curls, grazed her knuckles down his jaw, across his upper lip, along the facial hair that was so soft in one direction, so marvelously not when his lips were moving between her legs. He turned his head, kissed her fingertips one by one as she offered each. His gaze never left hers, and her nipples tightened sweetly beneath her shirt, rising up for his attention.
“So what are you thinking, Mackenzie?” she asked quietly, stroking him.
“I’m thinking I’d like to sit on the bench, hold you in my lap while you sleep as long as you like.”
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“Mmm. What did you buy me?”
He turned to the decorative bag behind him, pulled it forward. Violet was conscious of his nervous tension as she reached in.
“I bought you two things. I was sure you’d like…at least one of them.” She lifted out the custom-made Italian ankle boots. Designed in a hunter green velvet that would perfectly match the first dress she had worn with him, it had black ribbon lacings, the ends of the laces tipped in emerald beads. The elegant stem of the heel was three inches.
“There’s also three extra sets of laces in there. You can do them up in a gold foil color for Christmas parties, and there’s a brown with these smooth colored earth stone beads to tone it down, wear them with jeans. And then there’s one set in a matching green lace. I chose the boots, but Justin pointed out the laces and the ways you could wear them. I don’t think that’s cheating, exactly.” She suppressed a chuckle. “I love them, Mac. They’re beautiful. They’re perfect.” She set the boot aside, leaned down to kiss his firm mouth. “You’re perfect.” His hand curled up behind her neck, holding her there, prolonging the embrace, and she had no objections. She couldn’t think of a more wonderful moment, basking in the sun of a secluded garden, Mac’s lips on hers, his touch on her body.
He pulled back slightly. “The other thing. If you don’t like it…it may have been too forward, but you said I should get you something you would like…” He stopped, shook his head. “I should probably take it back.”
“Not until I’ve seen it.” She was curious as to what item Justin had in his shop that would be causing Mac such concern, and she reached back in the bag.
It was a hinged box of carved wood, the top engraving of a pair of whooping cranes. “This is beautiful, Mac. What were you so worried about?”
“Inside,” he inclined his head. “The gift is inside. I just thought you’d like the box, so I bought that.” He shifted. “I bought the boots for you, too. This…I thought you’d want to know it was bought with your money, so to speak.”
“I know how much Justin’s shoes cost. You spent too much already, and I told you to use the certificate,” she scolded.
“I did. Inside the box.” He placed a hand over hers on top of the lid. “But I can get you something else if you don’t like it.”
Curiosity fully roused, she released the clasp of the box and raised the lid when Mac reluctantly slid his hand away.
The silk-lined interior held two things. One was a key. The other was a man’s silver bracelet. The Italian design of flat pewter links joined by smaller links would be an appealing look for a man who wasn’t a fashion plate, but who knew how to dress well and attract a woman’s eye. Each of the smaller links was embedded with a discreet diamond chip.
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“It locks,” Mac said, as she looked down at it. “I used Lisbeth’s gift at The Zone so Mistresses would know what I was…but they never really tied me to her. You hate it.