All's Fair in Love and Mastery (Masters Unleashed 5)

In the gift shop, he claimed a camo duffel bag with the Lucky Muskie logo on it, then went back to the kitchen and pilfered a wooden spoon and a bread paddle before heading down to the first of several storage rooms. There, he found a few new coils of rope still in the packaging, some chain, a few likely sized locks and their keys, and a whippy length of fiberglass that was probably meant to turn into a fishing pole but didn’t have any metal parts on it yet. For a few minutes he’d eyed the many sealed packages of fishing hooks, then decided to play it safe, considering how far they were from emergency medical assistance. He found several other odds and ends that he threw into the bag, and was halfway tempted to go looking for a canoe paddle just to be funny. He doubted Arabella would be in the mood to joke around.

Undoubtedly, she just thought he was exercising his rights to be the asshole Dominant, especially after he hadn’t fucked her last night either. Yes, he was into orgasm denial, but in this instance that wasn’t the reason why he’d held out.

The truth was, he’d whimped out twice.

Even though he was getting close to thirty, he’d never had unprotected sex before and he’d freaked himself out at the last minute. Sure, driving her crazy was fun, and not an unusual hobby of his when it came to submissives; however, this time it had been nothing more than cowardice. He wasn’t sure what he

was nervous about. He trusted that she’d told him the truth, so it wasn’t the risk that made him hesitate. And fuck, he wanted to slide inside of her and feel every single bit of her.

Arabella wasn’t the first person who had asked him to do it, but she was the only one he’d seriously considered following through with. For some reason, it felt like something more meaningful than just sex that way, and he was already way too vulnerable where she was concerned. He didn’t plan to back out, but when it had come to that moment—first last night, and then this morning—he’d balked.

Situations like this always made him feel stupid.

As a Dominant, there was a lot of pressure to be perfect and to know exactly what he was doing all the time. To have himself under control. To know everything. But sometimes he didn’t feel any more self-controlled than he had as a teenager. He wasn’t sure when he was supposed to have learned the finer parts of being a self-possessed master, but some of the submissives he’d spent time with at the club had started calling him master and the title had stuck. There were times he felt like a sham.

He was just an evil, sadistic bastard who liked to cuddle. Taking care of a woman after he’d torn her down was only right.

The one time he’d worked up the nerve to discuss it with Will, his brother had assured him that most Dominants he knew felt the same way, but that didn’t mean he wanted Arabella to know. Feelings of insecurity were normal even in a Dominant, but they soured the experience for the submissive, in his opinion.

Then there was his current predicament. Funny how something so vanilla would be the first sexual thing to make him feel like an idiot in the past few years.

Maybe because his only serious relationship had been with a client, he’d never gotten past the idea of using protection. He’d fucked plenty of girls in high school, after he’d been kicked out of Greystone, but he’d always been careful because he hadn’t wanted to get targeted for a paternity lawsuit. Their father had hammered that into their heads pretty thoroughly over the years.

What his hesitation was now, he had no idea. It was probably the added emotional connection he was worried about, especially since he didn’t know where he stood with her.

Or maybe it was just sixteen years of conditioning he was having trouble getting past.

If he balked much longer, he’d have to give her an explanation.

By the time he got back to the kitchen, Arabella had breakfast laid out. They’d brought enough fresh food with them to feed an army, and apparently either she thought he was starving or it was just easier to hide the big lump of rat poison under a mound of scrambled eggs.

“How much poison did you add?” he asked, gesturing to the eggs.

“Oh, I wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise,” she replied mildly. She led him into the dining room, which she had set for two, one of them at either end of the ridiculously long trestle table. She gestured for him to sit and put his plate down in front of him.

“Breakfast is served, King Grant.”

“King? Have I been given a promotion?”

She shrugged. “I’d tell you to check with human resources, but we don’t have any reception this morning.”

“We don’t?” He raised his brows and felt for his phone, only to realize he’d left it in their room. He’d forgotten it up there part of yesterday too. It was strange how his phone was an extension of his arm back home, but here he kept forgetting to carry it.

“Nope. I guess we’ll have to figure out how often this happens and see whether there is a way to boost the signal for when you have guests. I don’t know if people will be able to handle being out here with no reception.”

They began to eat, and Grant had to restrain himself from groaning aloud from the pleasure the food brought him. With only a hot plate in his apartment, he rarely had home-cooked anything unless he went over to Will’s house. Arabella was a good cook. Compared to Grant she could host her own cooking show.

“I’m starting to wonder if you just brought me along to make you food.”

“I brought you along because I need someone I can trust here as a second opinion. Someone with a good eye for detail, who runs a successful business.” He put some jam on his toast. “I also wanted my best friend here to share this with, even if she’s pissed at me.”

“I’m not pissed at you.” She sighed. “We just wanted very different things from our . . . friendship before we got here, and now that we’ve found some common ground it should be easier.” She took a bite of her bacon, then glanced up at him earnestly. “What was torturing me about this morning? Were you getting even for something?”

Grant could feel heat rising in his neck and he wished there was some sort of convenient way to change the subject, like possibly an attack by rabid geese.

“Do geese get rabies?” he asked, abandoning any hope of being suave.

“Did you . . . get bitten by a goose while I was making breakfast?” she asked, eyebrow arched.