She followed him to his newly renovated and reorganized office, and when he sat at the huge, dark oak desk he snapped his fingers and pointed to the floor beside him. Rather than give her an explanation, he opened his laptop to some sort of bookkeeping program. She stood there uncomfortably, not sure what had just happened or what she was supposed to do. He’d given her the impression something exciting was going to happen, but now he was working?
“Are you going to stand there all day or are you going to kneel like a good girl?” he asked, not looking up from his laptop screen.
Oh.
She moved to the spot he had indicated and knelt there the way he had shown her earlier. The floor in his office wasn’t as clean as the bar, and the grit dug into her knees. She dusted the floor with her palm, and then smoothed the grit from her skin before settling back in place. He either hadn’t noticed or didn’t mind the adjustment.
They’d spent so much time together in here as she helped him develop a filing system and organized his shit, but it looked different from her new vantage point. The entire space had been ripped out and rebuilt, making it very different from the original. Other than Juliet and Dex, no other woman had even set foot in this office. It filled Juliet with an odd satisfaction not to see rulers he’d broken on other women strewn around, and to not feel like she was just one in a long string of lovers he’d brought back here.
She watched him work, drinking in the sight of him even though they spent all sorts of time together. After close to five minutes of pretty kneeling, her knees were aching and her back was stiff. Just when she was about to complain, he reached out to stroke her hair. Even though his attention never seemed to stray from his work, he was well aware she was there, being obedient. She sank further into her haze and waited.
She’d read about women who swore subspace was even better than being drunk, and now she was starting to understand. This low-key elation would be hard to give up. He hadn’t even had to spank her, and yet she felt better than she had in years. Excited. Maybe more than a little in love. He was the perfect mix of thoughtful and dangerous with just a hint of arrogant bastard. In the quiet privacy of his office, meditating on him, she gave up fighting her feelings for the man.
She was a dog worshiping her master.
Endorphins filled her as she watched him work—the movements of his hands on the keyboard, the angle of his head, his strong jaw. Maybe in a few minutes he would kiss her. Maybe in a few minutes he would touch her. The pain in her knees faded into a different part of her mind, aching but distant. She accepted the discomfort to please him. She was lucky that he’d chosen her, that he was patient with her while she was learning. This man could have almost any woman he wanted and yet he’d chosen her. It had to be frustrating for him to deal with how vanilla she was. She wanted to impress him with how fast she could learn and how much discomfort she was willing to take for him.
When he finally turned his attention to her, it was like the sun coming out after a string of cloudy days. Her heart fluttered as she waited for him to say or do something to acknowledge her.
“Such a patient girl.” His gaze was warm with approval. “Come here.”
She crawled the short space to his side, and he lifted her into his lap, wrapping her in his arms and brushing his lips over hers. His thigh jostled the butt plug, and she whimpered, the arousal that had banked a low flame in her belly blazing back to life.
He pushed his laptop aside and put her on his desk, the pressure from the hard oak jostling the plug yet again, sending sparks of uncomfortable pleasure through her.
“Let me see your knees.”
Gently, he brushed off her knees and shins, then kissed them one after the other. They were red and achy.
“You were very patient. I expected you to last about a minute, and that was more like fifteen.”
“It was?” So strange. It had seemed so much shorter, and yet years longer. A lifetime, perhaps. Even though the kneeling part seemed to be over, the feeling it had given her—of belonging to him, of being a good, obedient girl—lingered like a buzz under her skin.
He pressed his forehead to hers and warmth spilled through her. Euphoric tears pricked her eyes, and she couldn’t understand why. It felt a lot like love, but laser focused and intense.
When he pulled back to look at her, she missed the feeling of him being closer, but also loved being able to see his warm expression. She couldn’t remember anyone ever looking at her as though she was something special. She’d always sort of blended into the background—reliable, old, and practical before her time. Her parents had always joked that she was the reincarnation of a little old lady. Will was the only person in the world who didn’t seem to find her boring.
“I think I understand now why some submissives call their Dominants ‘Master,’” she told him, hearing her own voice as though it was coming from far away. Maybe they were words she shouldn’t be saying aloud, but at that moment having inhibitions where he was concerned seemed silly. There was no more bullshit or new relationship uncertainty—at least not when it came to this. She trusted him implicitly.
His smile was devastating, and she found herself pressing a hand to her chest, as though her heart might spill out.
“Yeah?” he asked quietly, not breaking the spell between them. “Tell me, sunshine. Why do some submissives call their Dominants ‘Master’?”
She still felt fuzzy, focused on his every facial movement and hint of body language. She ached to please him but didn’t know how to anticipate what he might want.
“I can’t explain it with words. It’s something you just have to feel.”
He made a little humming noise, noncommittal. He rubbed the tip of his index finger along her bottom lip and she opened her mouth, letting him run his finger over her tongue and along her back teeth as though he was inspecting her.
“You understand, and yet a few weeks ago you didn’t even know you were submissive.” He withdrew his finger from her mouth and painted her saliva over her bottom lip before giving her a long, lingering kiss
that made her ache with a torrent of feeling. When he pulled back, she leaned into him.
“I think I knew I was submissive not long after I met you—I just didn’t know there was a word for how you made me feel.” She sighed. “It must be hard for you to have regular interactions with women and not have them falling all over themselves trying to please you.”
“It’s harder than you think to find the right match. Not every Dominant has the same effect on every submissive. Sometimes people click, and sometimes they never do, no matter how hard they try.” His expression turned grim. “And sometimes there are other obstacles that two people can’t overcome, even if they care about each other.”
She wasn’t sure if he was talking about his ex or about her.