near everything.”
After Chase placed seventh, the party broke up.
Ben was too restless to sit inside, so he headed out to his workshop. But his thoughts kept drifting to Angel. He hoped she wouldn’t talk herself out of returning to the Rawhide.
It’d been a common occurrence, in Ben’s experience, that once a woman was out of the club atmosphere, she’d get to thinking about how she’d willingly given herself over to a dominant partner. She’d become mortified by her behavior. In the moment, it’d been a heady experience. In the outside world, it seemed…wrong. Dirty. Out of character. A violation of her feminist sensibilities.
Not that Ben disagreed some dominant/submissive relationships were borderline degrading. It bothered him that some women’s foray into the scene only showed the worst side. Not the best side, like Layla and Murphy, who’d been together for years. Their devotion to each other’s needs was undeniable. Ben wasn’t looking for a lifestyle sub, but a woman who understood this wasn’t a phase with him. He was a dominant to the core and always would be. He couldn’t be with a woman who wouldn’t accept that side of him—no matter where they met.
Planing boards for mission-style nightstands took his mind off constant speculation about the odds of Angel showing up.
He suspected it’d be a long week.
Chapter Nine
Oh my aching ass.
Ainsley’s butt still stung on Monday morning. Bad. She’d immersed herself in a cool bath as soon as she’d returned to the hotel after her sexcapades at the Rawhide Club with Bennett. Every time she felt that burning twinge, it reminded her of him. Of how he’d known the pain would morph into something else entirely for her.
And that knowledge had shaken her very foundation.
She prided herself on being a logical woman. But what she’d experienced with Bennett defied logic. A smart, independent, capable female ceding all control, in essence saying, here’s my body, do to it what you please, don’t let me think, just make me come.
Did that make her a mindless slave to pleasures of the flesh?
No. Ainsley knew it wasn’t that cut and dried. Logically she understood the difference between giving control and having a man take control away. What amazed her was that she hadn’t felt powerless at any point. All she’d felt was relief.
Which gave credence to Bennett’s claim: the submissive had all the power in the situation. The dominant was restricted only to the amount of power the submissive relinquished. But that didn’t answer the question of why she’d trusted Bennett so easily? So quickly? Which led to the next question weighing on her mind: would there be a next time?
She had until Friday to decide. And heaven knew she’d dissect this scenario and potential outcomes a hundred times before then. The image that kept popping up when the doubts plagued her was Bennett’s face and the intense way he studied her. He wanted to know her, inside and out. Her every gesture, her every laugh, her every facial twitch and her every word were memorized and filed away for his future use.
And if she was totally honest with herself, she was less spooked by that than she was immensely flattered.
Tapping on her car window startled her. She glanced at the intruder, slicked up, anal-retentive, nosy Turton Ingvold, the man she’d secretly dubbed the turd . Because boy howdy, did the name fit him. Brown hair, brown eyes, and a total brown-noser—to everyone except her. Turton treated her with an air of derision. He’d expected to land the bank president position after the man who’d initially been tapped for the job last spring had been abruptly reassigned. But she’d been offered the plum job for this new branch office, making Turton her second-in-command.
She managed to smile at him after she exited her car. “Morning, Turton.”
He walked beside her—right beside her—up the sidewalk. “I trust you’ll handle the situation with Rita this
After Chase placed seventh, the party broke up.
Ben was too restless to sit inside, so he headed out to his workshop. But his thoughts kept drifting to Angel. He hoped she wouldn’t talk herself out of returning to the Rawhide.
It’d been a common occurrence, in Ben’s experience, that once a woman was out of the club atmosphere, she’d get to thinking about how she’d willingly given herself over to a dominant partner. She’d become mortified by her behavior. In the moment, it’d been a heady experience. In the outside world, it seemed…wrong. Dirty. Out of character. A violation of her feminist sensibilities.
Not that Ben disagreed some dominant/submissive relationships were borderline degrading. It bothered him that some women’s foray into the scene only showed the worst side. Not the best side, like Layla and Murphy, who’d been together for years. Their devotion to each other’s needs was undeniable. Ben wasn’t looking for a lifestyle sub, but a woman who understood this wasn’t a phase with him. He was a dominant to the core and always would be. He couldn’t be with a woman who wouldn’t accept that side of him—no matter where they met.
Planing boards for mission-style nightstands took his mind off constant speculation about the odds of Angel showing up.
He suspected it’d be a long week.
Chapter Nine
Oh my aching ass.
Ainsley’s butt still stung on Monday morning. Bad. She’d immersed herself in a cool bath as soon as she’d returned to the hotel after her sexcapades at the Rawhide Club with Bennett. Every time she felt that burning twinge, it reminded her of him. Of how he’d known the pain would morph into something else entirely for her.
And that knowledge had shaken her very foundation.
She prided herself on being a logical woman. But what she’d experienced with Bennett defied logic. A smart, independent, capable female ceding all control, in essence saying, here’s my body, do to it what you please, don’t let me think, just make me come.
Did that make her a mindless slave to pleasures of the flesh?
No. Ainsley knew it wasn’t that cut and dried. Logically she understood the difference between giving control and having a man take control away. What amazed her was that she hadn’t felt powerless at any point. All she’d felt was relief.
Which gave credence to Bennett’s claim: the submissive had all the power in the situation. The dominant was restricted only to the amount of power the submissive relinquished. But that didn’t answer the question of why she’d trusted Bennett so easily? So quickly? Which led to the next question weighing on her mind: would there be a next time?
She had until Friday to decide. And heaven knew she’d dissect this scenario and potential outcomes a hundred times before then. The image that kept popping up when the doubts plagued her was Bennett’s face and the intense way he studied her. He wanted to know her, inside and out. Her every gesture, her every laugh, her every facial twitch and her every word were memorized and filed away for his future use.
And if she was totally honest with herself, she was less spooked by that than she was immensely flattered.
Tapping on her car window startled her. She glanced at the intruder, slicked up, anal-retentive, nosy Turton Ingvold, the man she’d secretly dubbed the turd . Because boy howdy, did the name fit him. Brown hair, brown eyes, and a total brown-noser—to everyone except her. Turton treated her with an air of derision. He’d expected to land the bank president position after the man who’d initially been tapped for the job last spring had been abruptly reassigned. But she’d been offered the plum job for this new branch office, making Turton her second-in-command.
She managed to smile at him after she exited her car. “Morning, Turton.”
He walked beside her—right beside her—up the sidewalk. “I trust you’ll handle the situation with Rita this
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