More than a Dare (Masters Club 4)

Dahlia caught her breath. It was hard to reconcile this new version of Hayden with the easy-going guy she’d gotten to know over the past few months. Even before their newfound sexual connection, she’d felt comfortable around Hayden from the moment they’d met. He’d been one of the first to take her under his wing when she’d joined the hospital staff. There had never been any of the one-upmanship or not-so-subtle digs she’d grown used to since med school.

“Slave girl…”

What would it be like, to submit so completely to another person? To surrender her will and her right to choose for herself?

Like slave m. in Dark Confessions.

Dahlia snorted softly, shaking her head. She hadn’t thought about that book in ages. She wasn’t even sure she still owned it. But, boy oh boy, it had had a powerful impact on her when she’d first discovered it.

She must have read it easily a dozen times over the years, back when she still had time to read. She’d stumbled across the book quite by accident. She had just started her first semester at Yale when she’d wandered into a used bookstore in town. Its crammed shelves were filled with every kind of book imaginable. It had the particular smell of old bookstores—a combination of paper, leather, mildew and dust—that she’d always found inviting. There were ancient but comfortable chairs set here and there among the shelves, and hand-painted placards that read: Sit. Relax. Read.

As she’d started to make her way toward the fiction section, she’d noticed a small room off the main space, the entrance covered in a curtain of hanging glass beads. The small sign above the door read: Erotica.

Glancing furtively around, she’d slipped past the beaded curtain into the small space. To her dismay, there was a guy in there. He stood in front of the shelf marked Gay Erotica. He glanced up as she entered and then looked away.

Her first impulse had been to leave—to wait until he’d gone before entering again. But she’d had a class to get to in an hour, and anyway, why should she run away? Reminding herself she was an adult with every right to read whatever she wanted, she’d remained.

Taking stock of what was on offer, she’d been drawn to the bookshelf that contained BDSM literature. She could still remember pulling that book from the shelf. The cover had been a shiny red with nothing but the title and author, who identified herself only as slave m. throughout the book. There was nothing on the back cover—no description, no picture, no nothing, just a blank expanse of red.

Intrigued, she’d flipped through its pages. The passage she’d read while standing there had made the hair on the back of her neck stand up, and she’d momentarily forgotten how to breathe. Her cheeks flaming, she’d glanced back toward the guy, relieved he had his back to her.

Caught up in the story, she’d feverishly scanned the pages, blushing all the while. She’d been shocked at the harsh, dark descriptions of total debasement, erotic humiliation and cruel torture to which slave m. was routinely subjected.

The descriptions were lurid, the writing sometimes clumsy, yet there had been an edgy authenticity to it that had captivated her attention.

While her eighteen-year-old mind had informed her that the notion of erotic slavery was by definition an insult to women, her clit had throbbed as she read, her nipples stiffening beneath her college sweatshirt.

When three college kids entered the small space, she’d closed the tattered paperback, intent on returning it to its spot on the shelf. But her fingers had refused to let go. When she finally left the bookstore, Dark Confessions had been among her purchases.

She wondered now where the book had gotten to. She thought about the box of old textbooks and novels she’d hauled around since medical school, and which now resided in the back of her bedroom closet. Maybe she’d have a look one of these days and see if the much-thumbed book was in there.

She flashed back to her embarrassing but thrilling audition for the right to attend the Masters Club party. Hayden had asked her then to share her darkest erotic fantasy. A scene from Dark Confessions had flickered through her mind at the time, but she’d promptly dismissed it. She’d chosen her dark intruder scenario instead, never dreaming at the time he would bring it so vividly to life.

No question about it—Hayden was the most exciting man she’d ever been with. While a part of her was afraid, both of her own impulses and of what Hayden might expect or require, she couldn’t deny how alive she felt since they’d embarked on this adventure together.

Once back in her apartment, she dropped her gym bag, fished her phone from her coat pocket, and hung her coat on the rack. As she headed toward the kitchenette, she touched her phone screen and tapped on his text message from earlier.