Mastered by Malone (Haven, Texas 6)

“Kitten.” He reached out and placed his hand around her ponytail, grasped it firmly, and pulled on it. The sharp tug of pain made her gasp and focus on him.

“That’s better. I can see I need to work on ways to keep your attention on me and only me.”

“My attention is on you.” Another tug. She let out a soft gasp. It stung. Tears filled her eyes. And yet there was an answering tug on her clit. Her heart beat faster. And all those thoughts flooding her mind vanished.

“Sir.”

Oh, shit. She was fucking up already. And she’d already been punished earlier for forgetting how to address him.

“Sorry, Sir.”

“Better. When we play, your only focus should be on me. Obeying me. Pleasing me. When we play, you are kitten and I am Sir. Got it?”

“Okay, got it. Sir. I’m sorry. I know I’m not exactly graceful and I tend to lose focus, but I’m trying.”

“Nobody expects you to be perfect, or to know what you’re doing. This is all new to you.” He reached down and grabbed both hands. “When you kneel between my legs, your hands are here.” He placed them down on the top of his thighs. “And unless I say otherwise, I want your eyes on me.”

She quickly raised her eyes from where she’d been staring at her hands on his thighs. He had nice thighs. Muscular.

“Understand?”

“Yes, Sir, is this a typical position for a sub to take?”

“This is what I require of you when you’re in this position. You don’t need to worry about other subs or Doms or the way they do things. This is what I want from you. Understand?”

Sort of. “So if I ever have another Dom,” which was highly unlikely, “he might have different ways of doing things?”

A look crossed his face, something she couldn’t decipher. But then it quickly disappeared. “Yes. The reason I want your hands on my thighs is because you have a nervous habit of tapping your fingers when you’re scared or uncertain. I want you to give those feelings to me.”

“Give them to you?”

“Yes. By bottling everything up, you create a poison that will eat you from the inside out. Have you ever spoken to anyone about what happened that night?”

“I told the detectives, Mike, and you.”

“You were angry and you blurted things out, but you definitely didn’t tell me everything. You didn’t tell me how it made you feel.”

“Can we talk about something else, Sir?” Part of her wanted to get up and storm away. To tell him to mind his own damn business. To point out that he wasn’t exactly forthcoming. About anything. But she didn’t. Partly because she knew he spoke the truth. It was a poison eating her from the inside out. And partly because she was scared that would mean this was over. And she’d never get another shot. Not with him.

“All right. For tonight, I’ll let that go. You never answered me. Is tapping your fingers nervously something you’ve always done?”

“Um, yes. It started after my parents died. Used to drive my aunt nuts.”

“I think we can agree that your aunt’s opinion doesn’t matter. She has no weight here, no bearing. Whenever anything she has said comes into your mind, you’re going to give me that too.” He tapped his finger to her forehead lightly. “I can tell a lot more goes on in here than comes out here.” Now he lightly ran his finger over her lips. Her breathing grew faster. “When it’s just the two of us, the only things that matter is what I say matters. What I want. So anytime something interferes with that, you are to tell me what’s going on.”

“You want to know everything I’m thinking?”

“If we do this right, then you’ll stop thinking altogether and just be in the moment. All those dark thoughts, all those worries will disappear. Because you’ll come to realize that the only important thing is pleasing me.”

Okay, on the one hand that sounded nice. Not to worry or think or fret. But on the other hand, she wasn’t sure she only wanted to think about pleasing him.

“Tell me what you’re thinking right now.”

“I’m thinking that you’re pretty arrogant.”

Oh, fuck. Why did I say that?

But instead of looking angry, his lips twitched. “All this time, I’ve been playing with subs who wouldn’t dare say that to me, even if they were thinking it. And along comes Calamity Jane, rocking up my world. Seems I’ve been missing out.”