I’ve promised to trust him, but I’m not used to being looked at as if I’m a piece of meat. Like a woman whose sole purpose is to please him and do whatever he commands.

These shivers trembling my body… are they because I’m actually afraid? Or because I’m finally getting what I’ve always wanted?

Please, Ian. Go slow. My brain doesn’t know what it wants yet.

His arms wrap around me, tightly, possessively. I’m his. I’m the prize he won, the woman he’s been coveting, and now he gets the smug satisfaction knowing that I walked through that door a Domme… and will hopefully walk out his obedient sub.

“Look at you, all dressed up for me.” Ian kisses my throat, sucking my flesh and lashing his tongue against my skin until I’m whimpering. I don’t know where to put my hands. On his shoulders? Around his waist? Do I wait for him to decide for me? “You’re beautiful.” My jacket bunches up in his hands, and I briefly worry that he’ll rip off my clothes. “You’re always beautiful, Katie. Just thinking about you at work or here at home makes me so fucking hard.”

He grips my ass, fingers attempting to push beneath the restraint of the corset. Now I am whimpering. It’s a sound I’m not used to emitting.

“You feel it?” Ian takes my hand and shoves it between us, forcing my fingers to touch his erection. Yet I can’t get excited. If this were a collarless scenario, fuck yeah, I’d grab his cock and tease it until he was tempted to shove me down on the floor and fuck me – as Ian. Not a Dom.

Is there really a difference at this point?

“Yes…” My other hand braces against his muscular arm. “I feel it…”

“You feel what?”

Oh God, he’s growling already. It both turns me on and sends those frightening shivers.

“I feel it… sir.”

That’s the dirtiest word I could possibly say. Sir. Fuck, cunt, shit, pussy… haha, those are baby words. “Sir” means so much more. It means I’m letting myself go. That pretty soon I won’t even recognize myself anymore.

“Sir” is the most powerful word I could possibly say. I’m deferring to Ian. I’m saying he’s above me. That he controls everything from here on out.

It’s hard to get off my tongue.

“That’s what you do to me.” His hand wraps around my wrist, holding it to his cock. “Every time I think about you, in any situation, I get hard and can barely redirect my thoughts.” Ian kisses my cheek, and although it feels gentle at first, there’s a bite to it that can’t go unnoticed. “You know what?”

He pauses. My breath is rough, but I manage to drag up a response. “What, sir?”

Now it’s his breath on my lips, hot and welcoming. I’m tempted to kiss him, but I refrain, because he hasn’t given me permission yet. I know this game. I must not overstep my bounds.

“You’re the only woman who does this to me. Has ever done this to me.”

Perhaps it’s the current state of my brain. Perhaps it’s the sheer amount of disbelief I feel. Yet nothing in Ian’s voice insinuates he’s lying. Could it be? Is he really into me that much? Is it possible that I’m really the only woman who gets him hard with every thought?

I can’t believe it. This must be for the scene.

Ian’s voice is back in my ear, and I’m melting, every part of my body belonging to him if he wills it. “I want to take you, Katie. I want to be so rough with you that you don’t know how to walk anymore. Do you know what it means to be utterly claimed? Do you know what it means to follow your most basic animal instincts and turn into a primal creature who can’t control herself? That’s what I’m going to do to you. That’s all I want to do to you.”

My grip falters around him. Ian jerks back, but does not release me.

“Starting tonight, you will learn how to let go of who you really are. You’ll enter a world where all that matters is how sexual you feel. All you have to do is serve. All you have to do is enjoy serving and in turn being taken care of.”

It sounds tempting. God knows I need help letting go of my insecurities and everything else that makes me Kathryn Alison, the woman people think they know.

Ian is the only person – the only man – I can trust with this. I don’t know exactly what I feel for him. My heart wavers between wanting to fall in love and wanting to run far, far away.

Tonight will decide a lot of things.

“Do you want that, Katie? Do you want me to take care of you? Do you want your mind to be blissfully blank as you serve me, and take any punishment you deserve?”

I’m unaware of when it happened, but my hand is no longer around his cock. Instead, both of them are clutching his sides, attempting to hold myself in his embrace. I want to love on him. I want to feel him push into me, to overcome me with his strength and make me his.

That’s it, isn’t it? That’s part of a sub’s headspace. A glimmer of hope that I can do this strikes me. In another life, maybe I was born a natural sub.

No, I am a natural sub.

I have to be, otherwise this night will mean nothing.

“Yes,’ I say, wondering where the strength in my voice has gone. “I would like that. I don’t want to have to think at all.”

“That’s right, my love.” Ian eases me back, but all I can hear as we walk toward the bedroom doorway is “my love.” “Being a sub means giving up control. It means putting everything you want and need into my hands. I’m taking you places you never thought possible. You thought you saw your subs experience ecstasy? You don’t know anything. The best part?”

We’re in his room, my body calling for that big, comfortable bed and wishing it could roll around in it, making love, cuddling, falling asleep together.

It happened once before. Why couldn’t it happen again?

“The best part is knowing I’m going to be the first Dom to do this to you.” Ian sits me on the edge of his bed, hands cupping my face as he looks down upon me. “I’m honored.”

He continues to pet my face as I sit here before him, drinking in the delightful sight of him. Tall, proud, strong. Ian’s wearing a more casual suit, the kind that’s cut to his body, probably made by the old tailor here in town. His pants are so crisp that they move with the utmost grace. His shirt, a very light rose that only enhances his masculinity, clings to his torso in such a way that I can see the outline of his muscles beneath. In true Ian Mathers fashion, he has left the top two buttons undone. The man doesn’t have a lot of hair on his chest – he’s not a super hairy guy in general, outside of his face when he doesn’t shave – but I can’t stop staring at…

How much I want him to overpower the fuck out of me.

“Katie…” Ian’s hands squeeze the back of my head, tipping it back and making me open to his lowering mouth.

Oh my fuck, he’s practically inhaling me!

I’ve never felt this man so famished before. He’s devouring my lips, suppressing my tongue in the bottom of my mouth, and making me feel so isolated and small that I don’t feel like there’s a world outside of this bathroom at all. Every time I slip into the abode of this room, I bring myself back, panicking a little, my moans both a reflection of my status in this relationship and my denial that I love this.

It’s okay, Kathryn. It’s okay to love this.

A grunt falls down my throat, and Ian steps back, leaving me disheveled on his bed. He looks me over. His grin makes me shudder.

“I’ve thought a lot about what I want to do to you.” Fingers dance in my hair, and at first I think he’s going to undo my twist… but his fingertips make nice with the corner of my mouth, the place he assaulted with that powerful tongue of his – I know where I’d like it to go next. “In the end, it wasn’t about what I wanted as much as your needs as the sub I’m training.”

Training. That word hits me right in the gut.

“Are you prepared to obey my every command tonight, Katie?”