Commanded (Club Sin 6)

A quick breath passed through his lips, an obvious sign of relief that she hadn’t pressed the matter. “I joined a few weeks after my eighteenth birthday and went through training. Luckily for me, a sniper position became available. I tried out, and the rest is history.”

Interesting and all, but she found herself more curious about him, not the job. “Since you got the job, I take it that your dad trained you well?”

Sawyer smiled. “I learned from the best.”

Chloe bit her lip, trying not to laugh as her cat thrust his head into Sawyer’s chin to get Sawyer to notice him. “How many tours did you do?”

“Four tours in Iraq, each ten months long.”

Surprise fluttered up. “Gosh, were you home at all?”

“Nope, and I liked it that way.” He gave her cat a rub under the chin, making Mr. Magoo purr loudly. “My job gave me purpose, and I felt like I was doing the right thing to make the world a better place. I only came home for a couple months before going back out again.”

“Geesh, you were really young to be away from home for so long.” Chloe’s heart clenched. “And to be involved in war like that…”

He nodded. “Most people involved in war are quite young.”

A sad truth, Chloe thought miserably. “So when did you leave the military?”

“One day when we were clearing a town and looking for a target…” His eyes clouded over as he became lost in a memory. “It was hot that day. So damn hot.” A pause. “A few of my team were clearing the house when another sniper hit one of our guys. He was on the ground and bleeding out, so I left my position to help him. That’s when someone threw a grenade.”

Tears welled in Chloe’s eyes; she couldn’t stop them. As Sawyer spoke, the emotion he’d felt that day, the pain in his soul, the horrific things he’d seen—it all shone in his dark expression.

He finally blinked into focus, and his brows pulled together as he noticed her wiping her tears. “The grenade blew up my knee and I had to have it replaced. That’s when the military gave me an honorable discharge.”

Chloe drew in a deep breath, controlling the tremble she knew would otherwise appear in her voice. “I’m guessing you took time off to recover?”

“It took a good year to bounce back.” Her cat rubbed his face over’s Sawyer’s lips, and he snorted, moving Mr. Magoo off his lap. “Once I was healed, I applied for the SWAT team.”

“They must’ve appreciated your sniper abilities.”

“They did.”

She considered all she’d heard, overwhelmed by this information. “It’s like you lived another life.”

“It is much like that—a life far different from the one I live now.” He hesitated, the same darkness filling his eyes. “So much so that when I left the military I felt somewhat…lost.”

“PTSD?”

“Not in the sense that I had anxiety and couldn’t fit back into the world.” He crossed his arms, watching her in the intense way he had. “But more in the sense that I’d lived a certain way

for four years, had had my orders followed, and was someone important. Then I became nothing. No one listened to me. No one looked up to me. I had no purpose any longer. It felt like I wasn’t helping anyone anymore. And that was a hard pill to swallow.” He hesitated, not seeming to notice as the cat climbed back onto his lap. “The worst of it was when I recovered from my knee replacement.”

“What did you do to get over feeling that way?”

He uncrossed his arms, leaned toward her, and said in a serious voice, “I joined a BDSM club and became a sexual Dominant.”

Chloe blinked. Then she burst out laughing.

—

Amusement. Surprise. Curiosity. Sawyer watched Chloe go through all the expected emotions until she stopped on a piqued interest. He’d been wondering how she’d take the news of his sexual tastes. Vanilla woman either went straight to horror or became curious. Sawyer had never hidden his sexual preferences, not with any woman. To be in a loving relationship that was built on integrity and honesty, a woman needed to know him. And telling the truth was necessary.

Chloe nibbled her lip, regarding him, and her cheeks flushed a dark crimson. Sawyer suspected that, like with everything she did, she’d try to get to the bottom of it all before making a judgment. She eventually asked, “You’re kinky?”

“Yes, I prefer kinky sex.”

From where she sat on the beige carpet in an oddly submissive posture—with him sitting up higher than her—she continued, “So, you enjoy bossing women around?”