Mastered by Malone (Haven, Texas 6)

“The next nanny who replaced her wasn’t so interested in looking after us as she was getting into the old man’s pants,” Maddox said.

“How do you remember that?” Alec asked. “You must have been only two when Margaret was fired and he hired Lou-Lou.”

“But Lou-Lou lasted a few years. And she made an impression,” Jaret interjected. “I’m only a year older than Maddox and I remember Lou-Lou clearly. She had tits out . . . ” his voice trailed off as Alec frowned at him.

Then Alec turned to look around at all of them, who had amazingly stopped talking and were all listening—at the same time. Miracles did happen.

“You’ll refrain from any crude remarks or swearing around Mia, understand?”

Eyes turned on her. She felt herself blushing bright red.

“Something we need to know?” Raid asked.

“Yes. Mia is mine.”

A little thrill went through her. A combination of excitement and trepidation. She was his. For however long it lasted, she was his.

Lord help her.

“So you guys had nannies growing up?” she asked as she settled herself on the sofa in his office.

Alec gave her a look she couldn’t decipher as he sat on the armchair next to the sofa. Shit. Should she not have asked that? Were questions about his past off the table? But he’d offered that information at dinner tonight, so how was she to know?

Suddenly he reached out and grabbed her hand, stilling the fingers she hadn’t even realized had been tapping nervously against her thigh.

“You always done that?”

Asked questions about people’s pasts? Wasn’t that a normal thing to ask someone who you were about to enter a relationship with? Well, not a normal relationship, of course. Normal relationships involved dates and feelings and kissing, not generally handcuffs and blindfolds and paddles —

“Mia, you still here with me?”

“Huh?” She looked over at him in confusion. Of course she was still here. She hadn’t moved.

His eyes narrowed. Then he pointed at the ground between his legs. “Here. Now.”

She stood and moved between his legs. Was this part of contract negotiations? Or something he’d always want? Was she not supposed to sit on the sofa?

“Jesus, you’re worrying so much it’s practically coming out your pores. Kneel, kitten.”

She slid down to her knees, not very gracefully. In fact, she banged her knee against the floor as she dropped, then slipped to one side, falling against his leg. But he didn’t say anything about her clumsiness. She desperately wanted to rub her throbbing knee but didn’t want to bring attention to it, in case he hadn’t noticed.

“Okay, we need to work on that,” he commented dryly.

She dropped her gaze to the floor. Shame filled her. She was never going to be one of those women whose every movement looked elegant. She wasn’t some graceful swan. She was a newborn foal stumbling around on legs that didn’t work properly.

“Eyes to me,” he ordered.

Crap. Weren’t submissives supposed to look to the floor when they were in this position? She was sure that was the case in most of the books she’d read.

“Mia. Eyes. Now.”

Okay, now his voice was doing that dark and dangerous thing that made hunger pool in her stomach even as she wondered what would happen if she pushed him too far.

Not that she was going to. She raised her eyes to him.

He ran his finger down her cheek. “There you are. Keep those eyes on me. I want to see what’s going on in that overactive mind of yours.”

And he thought her eyes would tell him that? Was he some sort of eye-reader? He couldn’t really tell her thoughts, right? They didn’t teach that at Dom class, did they? Hmm, was there a Dom class?