He released her, satisfied that her worry had been negated by her trust in his domination, but in the next breath she was frowning, the moment gone.
“Perhaps if you wrote down your rules, I’d be better able to follow them.”
James smiled and started unbuttoning his shirt. “But if I do that I can’t change the rules whenever I want.”
She wasn’t going to be an easy sub, but he had no doubt that when he finally put all the pieces of the Beth puzzle in place it would be something beautiful.
She was watching him undress with ego-stroking fascination. He was in good shape, but women rarely looked at him with such blatant admiration and desire, especially here where good-looking people weren’t exactly scarce.
“Are we going to have sex now?” Beth licked her lower lip.
James was sorely tempted to say yes, though that was not part of the plan he’d come up with while she withered with pleasure in his arms.
He stripped the shirt off and held it up so she could slip into it. Beth looked at the shirt, then at him.
“You’re giving me clothes.” She eyed the shirt with trepidation.
Exasperated he said, “You’re not a house elf. It’s not going to free you.”
Beth’s face went completely blank and then she broke out in a huge grin. It transformed her face—she was suddenly so breathtakingly beautiful, and James blinked.
“Did you just make a Harry Potter reference?”
“I have nieces,” he said, a bit defensively.
“Sure you do.” Beth continued to grin. “I bet you have a Gryffindor tie.”
He did. “What are you, psychic?”
“No, just good at guessing things about people. I’m a professional at that. It was logical that you’d have something like a tie.”
James had no idea what that meant, and he was so thrown off by this weird conversational diversion that he blurted out the first thing that came into his head. “Don’t play Vulcan mind-games with me.”
Beth’s grin widened.
James stifled a groan. What was wrong with him? Las Palmas was not the place where he let his geek flag fly.
Beth cleared her throat, then said somberly, “‘The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the—’”
James threw the shirt over her head so he couldn’t see that face. “Put it on.”
Beth was still smiling as she slipped into the shirt, which had tails long enough to cover her ass and p*ssy
. James ignored the voice in his head that asked why he wanted to cover her up before taking her out in public, or why the sight of her in his shirt was so pleasing. For both their sakes he needed to remain in control of the situation, though he was starting to suspect navigating between Beth’s past as a submissive and her real personality which he’d just gotten a glimpse of would be more challenging than expected.
He reached out and undid the top two buttons of the shirt. Her breath caught when skin brushed skin, and the teasing of a moment ago was forgotten. He pulled the shirt to the side, exposing her breast.
“I want access to your body,” he said by way of explanation.
“Yes, Master James.” She shivered, but it wasn’t from cold.
James pulled the shirt back into place, leaving the buttons undone so that a long V of skin was visible.
Placing a hand on her back, he guided her out of the playroom.
Chapter Four
Beth’s body was still humming from the intense orgasms, there were butterflies of anticipation in her stomach, and she could feel the heat of a blush on her cheeks. Together those feelings helped her hush the internal monologue that was frantically pointing out everything she’d done wrong with Master James. From uninvited eye contact and not using his name and title when responding to direct questions to teasing him in a woefully disrespectful manner, she hadn’t followed the rules.
Yet, he didn’t seem to care, and the way he’d effortlessly taken command of her body, touching her both intimately and skillfully, made her feel far more submissive than the cage had. She was actually eager for him to command her, something she hadn’t felt since her first few disappointing sessions.
Beth walked beside Master James, his hand on her back guiding her. It was a distinctly possessive posture, but nothing compared to being made to crawl, or being leashed.