Page 71 of Blossom

“That doesn’t sound like something a Dominant would say.”

“You know as well as I do, Mary, that the true power in the relationship belongs to the submissive.”

I sit up in bed. “I’ve never seen it that way. I see it as a balance of power between the two.”

“Yes, I can see that as well.” He walks to his suitcase that sits on the floor, riffles through it, and pulls out a pair of boxer briefs. “I think you and I need to have a talk.”

“What about?”

He slides the underwear on under the towel and then drops the towel to the floor. “About what we both want out of this.”

The dark blue stretchy fabric of the boxer briefs perfectly accents his muscular thighs and perfect ass—not to mention the beautiful bulge in front. My skin sizzles, but I ignore it. “What if all I want is to be with you for a few days? What if I want to sit this one out, so to speak?”

He frowns. “What do you mean by that?”

“Taking a break from the club scene feels pretty good, Ronan. Having vanilla sex was…nice. It’s been a long time for me. I never thought I’d want it again, but—”

He holds up his hand to stop me. “Last night was very enjoyable. I won’t say that it wasn’t. But Mary, a vanilla relationship isn’t what I want.”

My heart drops. “I know that, Ronan.”

“I would like you to be my submissive,” he says. “But until you’re ready to get back into that scene, I don’t want you to think this relationship is something that it isn’t.”

“I don’t think anything of our relationship, Ronan.”

But I’m lying.

And I’m sure he knows I am.

I could fall in love with this man. And I never thought I wanted to be in love again.

…

Sometimes when your heart is broken, and you realize it will never be whole again, you find ways to patch it.

That’s what Brenda says, anyway.

“Perhaps it’s best that we end this,” Lucas said to me that last night, after I confessed my love to him.

Lucas was my first Dominant. We met in college, though he wasn’t a student. He was a professor. Never my professor, but he saw something in me. He groomed me into the submissive I became.

And I did something really stupid.

I fell in love.

I’m not the only woman to get screwed over by someone she thought cared for her.

Far from it. Lucas and I were different. I should’ve seen that from the start.

But I was young, innocent, naive.

Ignorant.

I’d never been in love before. I’d never even had sex before.

Lucas took my virginity—and he took it in a gentle and sweet way. It wasn’t until months later that he introduced me to the BDSM lifestyle.

I was taken aback at first. Creeped out, for sure. But I was falling in love with this older, experienced man, and I wanted to please him.