Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 136425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 682(@200wpm)___ 546(@250wpm)___ 455(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 682(@200wpm)___ 546(@250wpm)___ 455(@300wpm)
“Zach.” His fingers tightened slightly around her chin, and he moved in. “No Sirs. I want to hear my name. I’m not some random Dom in a club who wants you for a night.”
No, he wanted her for however long they had. “Then we should start, Zach. Is this our play space?”
He stepped back and gestured around. “I spent the afternoon renovating. I had to be creative, but the good news is I can be handy. Arthur helped. He’s surprisingly good at building furniture, and we had some supplies I didn’t know we had.”
It wasn’t like a plush sofa or a luxurious chaise lounge, but he and Arthur had created what looked like a spanking bench. She walked over and tested it out—comfortable, it was solid. “Did Arthur know what he was making?”
She felt like she could breathe again. Making the decision to take this time with Zach was a huge weight off her shoulders and her soul. The key was taking what she wanted and not giving up anything that would hurt.
Or maybe just understanding that this would hurt like hell, but it would be worse if she never had this time at all.
“Arthur, it seems, is in the lifestyle.”
That got her attention. “Arthur?”
Zach shrugged those big, glorious shoulders. “Hey, they get kinky in Wales, too.”
She still wasn’t going to tell him about her near miss with a potential serial killer—she did not want to be the next Daisy—but she felt like she had to talk about what she’d seen. “There’s something odd about him. I saw a picture of him today in the pub. It was his name, but it didn’t look like him.”
Zach seemed to think about that for a moment. “I promise he’s been vetted, and sometimes we don’t look like ourselves in pictures. It’s all about angles and lighting. Lacey says he’s solid, and he’s been helpful. Also, it’s a small community. I think they would notice if their vet got switched out.”
He was probably right and she was looking for conspiracies that didn’t exist. Which she shouldn’t do because there were so very many real ones. She didn’t need to make them up.
She also didn’t need to procrastinate. It was obvious Zach had been working hard all afternoon while she was gone. He had set up a whole play space, including a cot that would be hard for the both of them to fit on. Unless they cuddled close. He had a table with carefully placed toys laid out. There was a crop and lube and… Yup, that was a plug. A too big but really probably wasn’t too big plug. There were a couple of different styles of clamps. He had promised to dress her up the next time they played at The Hideout. He had gone to Canada before the weekend, so they hadn’t had a second weekend at the club.
How could she have fallen so hard in so few days?
“Take off your clothes, Devi.” Zach stood back.
She was right. It hadn’t been long. This might be exactly what she needed. Time with him could prove it never would have worked, and then this whole thing could be a hot, fever fantasy, a time she spent with an on-the-run, wanted-by-several-countries Dom. It wouldn’t hurt her whole heart if she figured out living with him wasn’t something she wanted to do for the rest of her life.
Because living with him these last few weeks hadn’t been awful, and he hadn’t even been fucking her.
Yeah, she knew she was being a little delusional. She was comfortable with him. She was starting to wonder if she needed to live in Manhattan or LA or London to have the career she wanted. What if the career she wanted was to be happy doing her own thing? Building her own business, even if it meant working at her uncle’s restaurant while she did it.
Being with Zach made her happy. Content. With herself. That was the part that killed her. Being with Zach made all those voices that normally screamed in her head quiet down, and she could hear herself for the first time in forever.
“Devi?”
She sniffled, trying not to get too emotional. “This isn’t going to be casual.”
His head shook. “Not for me. You will never be casual for me, Devi. It’s why I stayed away these weeks. I don’t want to hurt you, but I also… I don’t want to go the rest of my life without touching you again, without making as many memories as I can.”
He always knew what to say. The problem was she wasn’t certain who was talking to her—the man or the operative.
Tonight, it didn’t matter.
Devi frowned, realizing what she was wearing. “I should have… Zach, I’m sorry. It’s a farm. As a proper submissive, I think there’s an unwritten rule that you should never present yourself to your Dom while wearing Crocs, but it was these or Wellies.”