Sackmaster

Ann Jacobs

Book 1 in the Necessary Roughness series.

All-pro defensive end Jimmy Bronson, new to the Savannah Rebels, moved to escape memories of a disastrous marriage. A sexual Dominant who’s in no hurry to jump into another relationship, he falls in lust with an arresting female face in a magazine.

Julie Silver, the object of his obsession, happens to live in his condo building. Their connection is instantaneous and the sex is hot and wild. Quickly, they discover they share a fetish, which they decide to play out at Rebels’ Roost, the team’s exclusive BDSM club.

The perfect Master and slave ’til death do they part? Julie is not so sure. She is older than Jimmy and knows that lust comes easily when you’re young, but love requires time and compromise. Jimmy is very sure, though. Julie is perfect for him. He’s already bought her collar and a length of diamond-studded chain to lace through the rings that adorn her clit and nipples. A committed player—in sex games and life—always gets just what he wants.

An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

www.ellorascave.com

Sackmaster

ISBN 9781419926969

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Sackmaster Copyright © 2010 Ann Jacobs

Edited by Pamela Campbell

Cover art by Syneca

Electronic book publication November 2010

The terms Romantica® and Quickies® are registered trademarks of Ellora’s Cave Publishing.

With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

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This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.

Sackmaster

Ann Jacobs

Trademarks Acknowledgement

The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

Acura: Honda Motor Company, Ltd.

Botox: Allergan, Inc.

Escalade: General Motors, LLC

Fathead: Fathead, LLC

Jacuzzi: Jacuzzi, Inc.

Lycra: Invista North America S.A.R.I.

Navigator: Ford Motor Corporation

Perrier: Nestlé Waters

Pirates’ House: Trustees Garden Development LLC

Porsche: Dr. Ing. h.c.F. Porsche AG

Ram: Chrysler LLC

River Street Sweets: PJT Inc.

Sports Illustrated: Time, Inc.

Super Bowl: National Football League

Wikipedia: Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

Prologue

Savannah, Georgia

March 1

For the first time in ages, Julie Silver felt she’d done something more valuable for her fellow man than just smiling and looking good for the camera. She’d just raised more than ten thousand dollars by sitting onstage in a barber chair and letting the owner of an upscale Savannah salon cut off her long black hair and shave her head to benefit cancer research.

Though she’d decided to do it in memory of a dear friend who’d died of breast cancer, it hadn’t been that much of a sacrifice since she had a modeling assignment next week that required her to have a shaved head. Back home now, she unwrapped the pink silk turban from around her head and ran her hands over her smooth scalp.

It felt good. Almost like another erogenous zone that she’d kept free of hair ever since discovering, when she was in high school, how good that smooth pussy felt. With eager fingers she explored her satiny scalp, and as she did she felt moisture drip from her tightening cunt. Her nipples tightened when she caressed the sensitive hollow just above the back of her neck, imagining it was a lover enjoying her new nakedness.

Breathing hard, Julie stripped and stood in the shower, loving the feel of warm water dripping over her body, now totally hairless except for her eyebrows and lashes since she’d had most of her body hair permanently removed years ago—a present from her ex who’d tried almost everything to convince himself that she was who he wanted in his bed. He hadn’t succeeded, but she had to admit he’d tried hard. Hard enough that it had stung when he finally gave up and left her three years ago for a fresh-faced boy toy he’d told her matter-of-factly was better at sucking cock than she’d ever been.

Now Julie only had to please herself. And it pleased her to be totally naked and to revel in autoerotic sensations she’d only dreamed about. Stepping out of the shower, she toweled herself dry. Then she selected a large glass dildo, filled it with warm water and proceeded to use it on her clit and pussy as she rubbed her bare scalp with her other hand. Soon she shuddered with the force of a climax she’d attained all by herself. Loving herself.

* * * * *

The next day she looked in the mirror and frowned. Her hair grew too damn fast. A dark shadow marked her hairline, and when she ran a hand over her head it didn’t feel smooth anymore. This wouldn’t do. Skillfully, for she’d shaved the ex’s head pretty regularly when he was in his leatherman phase, she lathered up her scalp and shaved it smooth again. And she went ahead and swiped the razor over her eyebrows, knowing they’d have to go anyhow for the photo shoot.

She liked the feeling of smoothness, total nakedness. Although she always put on makeup and donned a wig to go to the gym and out shopping, she went bare in her Savannah condo, every so often rubbing her hand over the smooth surface of her scalp.

* * * * *

When she got to New York the day before the photo shoot, she submitted to a professional waxing that left her feeling even smoother than she did with a fresh shave. Not that she had enough growth to make the waxing necessary, strictly speaking. Julie knew it was kinky but didn’t care. She loved the sensation of total nakedness, even now that the photo shoot was finished and she was back home in Savannah.

She looked at herself in the mirror, liked knowing she was smooth from head to toe. Skimming her palm over her scalp, she felt a little prickly growth and picked up a razor to whisk it away.

But she looked assessingly at her image in the mirror. What would a lover think?

She didn’t have one, hadn’t since her marriage had crashed and burned. Not that she wasn’t interested. The right opportunity hadn’t arisen. She didn’t want just any hard cock. She wanted a loving brain and dominant spirit to go with it, and those seemed hard to come by, particularly in tandem.

She imagined her dream lover’s calloused hands caressing her bare scalp while she sucked his hard, hot cock and licked the velvety-smooth lubrication from his slit. He’d pull out when he was ready and come on her head, massaging the slick liquid into her scalp until it felt like wet silk.

Dream on, Julie. Most likely your fantasy lover would take off faster than a jet plane the minute you took off your wig. Shaking her head, she set down the razor and resolved to grow out her crowning glory.

Chapter One

One year later

Savannah Rebels’ spring minicamp

Tackling sled one, Bronson nothing.

Sweat damn near blinded him, or was it the sodden air turning to water when it hit his skin? Jimmy Bronson paused in the shade of a moss-draped oak at the edge of the practice field, wondering momentarily why the fuck he’d asked to be traded by his former team.

Never mind that he’d been ready to go anywhere to get as far away as possible from Chicago and the memories he’d always associate with the place.

He could only imagine how miserable training camp would be down South in July and August. Today’s nearly ninety degree weather was killing him. Come summer, he’d probably remember the weather now as comfortable by comparison. But it sure as hell wasn’t comfortable now, probably because a week ago he’d been experiencing the crisp, cool dregs of winter at his parents’ Montana ranch.

That was it. The contrast. Mopping his brow with the back of his hand, Jimmy decided he’d better find an apartment and move on down here now, get used to being perpetually steamed like a lobster while getting into playing shape. Not going home would provide an added benefit of several thousand miles more distance between him and the things that triggered his memories of Belinda.

Forcibly he banished the two-timing slut from his mind.

“You okay?”

Jimmy forced a grin when head coach Colin Zanardi came up to him, concern evident in his expression. “Yeah, Coach. I just need to start getting used to this godforsaken climate.”

“Guess the change must be a shock. It hit me hard when I first came down here after all the years I lived in Manhattan, but at least I’d experienced the heat, if not the humidity, back in west Texas when I was a kid. You’d better go on in the locker room and get a rubdown.”

Good idea. Jimmy already liked Zanardi, even though the guy had been a quarterback—the breed of player Jimmy had long ago programmed his brain to think of as a mortal enemy. Zanardi was an offensive guru who’d been a perennial MVP during his playing years.

“Will do, Coach.” He figured as he jogged to the clubhouse that the almost fifty-year-old coach could still step out on the field and run plays if he wanted to. The man could still throw, for sure, because Jimmy had seen him drilling balls through hoops from fifty yards when he’d checked in at the practice facility last week. He imagined Coach was headed out to throw some now, because he was pulling a wheeled box full of footballs.

Tom Harris, the Rebels’ defensive line coach, caught up with Jimmy in the locker room. Figuring he was in for an ass chewing about his lack of conditioning, he sat in front of his locker and took off his cleats before looking up at Harris. “Yeah, Coach?”

The big former defensive tackle shot a knowing grin Jimmy’s way. “Heat gettin’ to you, Bronson?”

Lying would do no good, since Jimmy felt the sweat plastering his jersey to his aching body. “A little.”

“How about toughening up your lily-white hide by spending five days next week helping out at Zanardi’s football camp out in Nowhere, Texas? I need to recruit a few more live bodies for him, and you being single again, I figure you’ve got nobody pantin’ at home for you.” Harris made it sound like an invitation, but Jimmy could read between the lines. He’d just gotten an order. Though it stung to admit it, Harris was right. He had nobody waiting at home for him to roll in the hay with.

Not that losing Belinda bothered him. At least not much. Yeah, it had stung his pride, finding that whenever he’d been at away games last winter, his almost-ex-wife had been fucking a rich Dom with a talent for wielding a cat-o’-nine, and not only in club scenes either. Obviously when she’d sworn she’d be his faithful slave at the club the year before, she hadn’t meant it. He ought to have known when she’d flatly refused to let him cut her long blonde curls when he wanted them short, or even to have her high-dollar hairdresser do it.

Put the bitch out of your mind, Bronson. He’d be damned if he’d feel sorry for himself. Forcibly he squelched the painful memories. “Sure, Coach. I’ll go.” He liked working with kids, looked forward to getting to know some of his new teammates and coaches better. Besides, it would mean he had an excuse not to go back to Montana and face sympathetic stares from the hands at his parents’ ranch. He figured most of them had probably fucked Belinda at one time or another, too, since she’d grown up right there on the ranch where her dad was still foreman. Worse, he worried the whole time he was home that the bitch might blow in to see Daddy almost any time.

“Good. We’re all meetin’ tonight at the Rebels’ Roost. You know where it is?”

“Sort of. I’ve never been there, though.” He’d heard rumors about the exclusive club containing a poorly disguised dungeon where Rebels with a taste for kinky sex could go without taking chances of getting in trouble. “Nobody’s invited me.”

“I’m invitin’ you now. Nine o’clock tonight. Be there. You better program the location into your GPS—the place ain’t easy to find.”

“Okay.” Jimmy took the paper Coach Harris handed him and set it on the floor of his locker, next to his wallet.

“You’re lookin’ good. And you’ll get used to the heat. I’m glad we got you.” With that, Coach Harris headed toward Matt Rubin, the Rebels’ veteran defensive tackle.

You’re gonna get snookered into volunteering for this camp, too, buddy. Or maybe not. Jimmy had heard Rubin was living with Harris’ daughter and that she kept him on a tight leash, literally. Not his business. Jimmy draped a towel around his neck and escaped into the training room.

* * * * *

By eight o’clock darkness was settling in. Towering pines and grandfather oaks dripping with Spanish moss lined the two-lane asphalt road that followed the Intracoastal Waterway south from Savannah. The few tumbledown shacks with rusted-out cars on blocks and washing machines on porches reminded Jimmy of Tobacco Road, clear out of the 1930s or 1940s, whenever the movie was made. A burned-out, redbrick church stood sentinel on the opposite side of the road.

The twenty-first century obviously hadn’t made it quite this far. He scanned the road for the turnoff his GPS system indicated was coming up, didn’t see it. But it had to be there. Slowing to a crawl, he finally spotted the single-lane, sand-and-crushed-shell road. No sign or landmark.

“Turn right, now.” He hoped to hell the GPS knew what it was talking about.

Would his Navigator fit? Gingerly Jimmy made the turn, found the crushed-shell road was smoother than it looked. “Follow the road for a mile to your destination,” the sexy female voice instructed him.

At the end of the winding road sat a large, square, two-story building in the center of a clearing. Straining his eyes in the dusk, Jimmy saw half a dozen cars out front, recognized the black, vintage Porsche that belonged to Coach Zanardi. Coach Harris’ white Escalade shone in the moonlight, as did wide receiver Sid Conyers’ silver Acura. Jimmy pulled up next to Matt’s red Ram truck. He saw several other cars but couldn’t match them with their owners.

He opened the door and stepped outside, was hit immediately with a brisk, damp breeze that smelled of fish and ocean. Different but not entirely unpleasant. Crushed seashells crunched under his feet. Not for the first time since he had arrived two weeks earlier, it struck him how different this place was from the wide open spaces where he had grown up. And from Chicago, where he’d played his first three years as a pro.

You wanted different scenery, didn’t you?

Striding toward what he assumed was the entrance to Rebels’ Roost, Jimmy reminded himself that Savannah was going to be his home. Yeah, he’d go back to the ranch to see his parents and sister, but he’d sworn he wouldn’t live there again. Too many memories. Too much angst. And too many regrets over a woman who wasn’t worth the effort.

When he tried the door and found it locked, he rang the bell. Coach Harris opened the door. “Hey, Jimmy. C’mon in. Colin’s gonna tell us what we need to know about the football camp, and then we’ll show you around. Meet the staff and all that.”

The staff? Jimmy began to get the idea this was an honest-to-God dungeon like the one where he and Belinda had played in Chicago, only more exclusive. He inhaled, caught a whiff of something that smelled mighty good.

“Yeah, we have to behave in town, so Mr. Hargraves built Rebels’ Roost so we can play without worryin’ about nosy townspeople. He went all out, put in a full kitchen and bar as well as hiring some Doms and subs— they live upstairs—in case you want to play and didn’t bring your own.” Coach led the way into a contemporary dining room where somebody had laid out huge platters of prime rib, mashed potatoes, several salads and a selection of desserts on two of the six large, round tables draped in the team colors.

“What do I have to do to join?” For the food alone, Jimmy figured membership would be worth whatever it cost him. Besides, he’d sworn off Belinda—not off all women. He might not be ready to look for anything permanent in the way of female company, but he missed the BDSM play—not to mention the sex.

“You already did. You’re a Rebel, and that’s all it takes. It goes without saying that Rebels’ Roost is the team’s secret. Nobody else is eligible, and everybody’s guests have to be vetted before we let them in. Inconvenient sometimes, but it’s the owner’s rule.” Coach paused. “Vanilla couples’ nights are Tuesdays and Thursdays. Dungeon’s open Mondays and Wednesdays, and also Fridays and Saturdays when we don’t have Sunday games. Sundays, out of season, Mr. Hargraves throws picnics for the kids.”

Something for everybody. Jimmy liked Hargraves already and he’d never met the billionaire financier who paid his salary. “I can see I’ll be spending a good bit of my spare time here.”

“Good thing. Keeps our guys out of the newspapers except for the sports section. Boss likes that.” Coach Harris shut up at the sound of a microphone crackling at the front of the room. “Coach Zanardi’s about to tell you guys about the camp schedule.”

* * * * *

Jimmy enjoyed Coach Zanardi’s football camp more than he’d thought he would. Hedgecock, Zanardi’s hometown in west Texas, was almost as small as the town near his parents’ ranch, but he could see how folks down there could get mighty tired of all the sand and cactus.

Once back in Savannah, he bought a piece of land along the Intracoastal Waterway and was watching his bachelor pad come together in a clearing among tall, spindly pines and dense palmettos. Meanwhile, until the house was finished enough to live in, he was hanging his hat at the same condo building where Coach lived with the new bride he had met while he was back home.

His weight routine finished, Jimmy showered and kicked back on his sofa with a protein shake and the latest Sports Illustrated magazine. As usual this time of year, football news was sparse. Flipping through the pages quickly, he didn’t see much that interested him until his fingers stopped dead still on a centerfold ad that took his breath away.

Emphasized with eye shadow and thick lashes too damn long to be natural, her big, cat-green eyes caught his gaze, held it like glue. He wanted to taste her lush, red lips, trace the softly angular line of her cheekbones and throat with fingers as gentle as he could make them. He imagined diamond-studded hoops swaying not only from her delicate, pink earlobes but from nipples that would be swollen from his lips, the flesh tight with the same sort of barely leashed passion he saw in her expression.

Naked. He sensed she was completely naked though only her face, shoulders and hands showed in the ad. She held a prism-shaped bottle of some scent he imagined would drive a man insane. It sure would if he were the man and this perfect female was wearing it as he swooped down and ran his lips and tongue over her smooth, bald head.

She was bald? Jimmy blinked then looked again, bringing the latest issue of Sports Illustrated closer. Yeah, the woman was completely hairless, her scalp as ivory-pink and smooth looking as her throat and the lush upper curves of her breasts. The fact that she had no eyebrows accentuated her long, thick eyelashes and those compelling green eyes.

He couldn’t draw his gaze away from this exotic, erotic-looking creature, but he wondered for a moment whether he was feeling some late effect from the concussion he’d suffered during last year’s playoffs when a mad-dog offensive lineman had apparently taken offense after Jimmy had slammed him onto the turf on the previous play, in his hurry to sack the opposing quarterback.

He could hardly believe any woman as gorgeous as the one in this ad would let anybody shave her head. But the hauntingly beautiful model obviously had—probably for money and lots of it. He wondered if maybe she’d do it again, this time for a lover’s pleasure. His pleasure?

* * * * *

The woman’s gaze burned into his own again the following day as Jimmy drove down a two-lane highway toward his brand-new house. This time she stared down at him from a massive billboard with those sexy eyes in the face that had haunted his dreams since the first time he saw the ad.

He’d tried to find that face on every woman he’d seen, practically tackling a tall, slender brunette in the elevator that morning because her catlike green eyes reminded him of the woman in the ads. He’d caught Coach’s wife Susan a few minutes ago in the lobby and described their neighbor, and Susan had told him the woman’s name was Julie, and that she lived in the other unit on their floor.

How was he going to finagle an introduction? Jimmy considered and discarded several ideas until a sudden lurch of his big, black Navigator brought him quickly back to reality. Damn, he’d managed to hit a pothole straight-on.

No need to run off the road because of his growing obsession. He pulled onto the shoulder of the highway and continued gazing at the larger-than-life face as though he hadn’t already seared it into his memory. “You look like Julie. Or rather she looks like you.” She did. Same green eyes. Same lips, the lush lower one pouting just a little. She even had Julie’s dimpled chin.

But the Julie who lived in his condo building had nicely arched eyebrows and glossy black hair that brushed her shoulders. Jimmy imagined watching it get shorn, seeing the woman on the billboard’s pinkish-white scalp emerge. His cock swelled painfully against the zipper of his jeans.

No way could he deny that he got off on women with shaved heads. Not that he’d tried too hard to get over the kink, though he had managed to resist shaving any unwilling subs. He thought back to the first time he’d seen a woman getting a head shave—it had been for some charity event up in Knoxville when he was in college. He’d developed a fierce hard-on then, a lot like the one he was sporting now as he gawked at the billboard.

He’d wanted to shave Belinda when they were married BDSM playmates, but submission had never gone that far with her. Fuck, she hadn’t submitted at all—it had all been an act. Bile rose in his throat when he remembered how she’d cheated on him at every opportunity, and there’d been lots of them last year when he was at training camp or out of town for away games. Bitch. You’re well rid of her, Jimmy my boy.

He’d sworn off commitments after enduring the humiliation, but he wasn’t about to swear off women. Since he’d been in Savannah, he’d trimmed his horns once a week or so with the club subs at Rebels’ Roost. And he’d sort of fulfilled his fantasy a while back when Dottie, one of the subs, had let him clipper-shave her head while she gave him head. He’d pulled out of her mouth and come all over her stubbly scalp, and it had felt damn good.

“Okay. So I have a hair fetish. Sort of.” There, he’d finally acknowledged it aloud, if only to himself. And some folks might think he was weird because of it, but there were crazier fetishes. Like getting off while your sub was encased in a latex body suit with holes for her cunt, ass and mouth. Or dripping wax on your slave’s most sensitive places. Or needing your sub to wear stilettos while you fucked her. Jimmy recalled that Dom at the club in Chicago who couldn’t make it with his sub unless she was dolled up like an infant, complete with oversized diaper. As fetishes went, Jimmy figured his was nothing he needed to worry about. Although…

Gunning the engine, he pulled back onto the highway and headed toward his nearly finished house on the Intracoastal Waterway. As he drove, he realized he really had a thing for Julie—if that was his bald obsession’s name.

* * * * *

He’d looked at her as though he wanted to eat her alive. The huge, incredibly hot guy in the elevator this morning had to have been at least six feet seven or eight. Unlike ninety-nine percent of men, he was tall enough so she could wear stilettos and he’d still tower over her. Chestnut hair, shaggy and longish, framed a symmetrical face no one would mistake for feminine even if he got rid of the neatly trimmed mustache and goatee. What impressed her most about his features were those dark-brown eyes that seemed to look right through to her soul.

He had muscles on his muscles. A pro football player with the Savannah Rebels, her neighbor, Susan Zanardi, had told her when she’d described him to her. A defensive end—whatever that was—Jimmy Bronson had been traded to the Rebels during this off-season from one of the Chicago teams. Susan should know since she was married to the Rebels’ head coach who looked young and fit enough that Julie was surprised he wasn’t a player.

She stretched out in the tub, said Jimmy’s name out loud. The image of the big guy stayed firmly in her mind. She reached up, ran her fingers through her freshly shampooed hair, imagined it gone again as it would be as of next month.

Yesterday Rick Hecht, her foolish agent, had practically stumbled over himself apologizing because the client, an internationally famous cosmetics manufacturer, wanted another session with her sans hair. He’d even pointed out that he’d managed to get her a huge bonus for going bald again, this time for ads touting the company’s new age-defying serum, and that he’d insisted the photo shoot be done right here in Savannah so she wouldn’t have to travel to New York City.

She laughed out loud. Rick wouldn’t have believed her if she told him how much she’d gotten off, touching her naked scalp, or that she’d often fantasized about shaving herself smooth again for her own pleasure.

Visualizing shots from the original layout that now appeared in magazines and on billboards all over the country, Julie smiled. Apparently customers liked those first images since the scent called Emerald Seduction was flying off department store shelves. She doubted those customers got turned on by the perfume as much as she had when she’d felt her silky skin beneath her fingers, from the top of her head to the tips of her scarlet-tinted toes.

Maybe I’ll just stay bald for a while this time. Admittedly, it was a pain to don a wig every time she left her condo. Not to mention the inconvenience of having to shave her head almost every day to keep it smooth. But the incredible sensations… They offset a lot of the downside. Almost all the downside, other than the fact that her baldness would probably scare away a potential lover.

Jimmy Bronson? She rotated the small gold hoops that dangled from her nipples, imagining it was the huge football player’s calloused fingers brushing against that sensitive flesh. Her clit swelled against its own tiny ring and made her tingle with anticipation.

Not for her dildo, though. For the first time in a long, long time Julie wanted a flesh-and-blood cock. And she knew just whose that was. Susan had mentioned that Jimmy worked out in the gym downstairs most evenings between nine and eleven o’clock. If Julie hurried, she might run into him.

Quickly she dried off, pulled on her workout clothes and sat in front of the mirror to dry her hair. Grinning at her image, she added a quick application of makeup. After all, the guy she wanted to seduce was probably used to women closer to his own age, which she imagined was somewhere in the mid-twenties. Best to put her best face forward and do it now, before she’d have to go bald for the new photo shoot.

* * * * *

He could hardly believe his luck. There, framed in the fitness center’s entryway door, was the woman who’d been lurking in his dreams.

“Hi, I’m Julie Silver,” she said as she held out a soft hand with long, red nails Jimmy imagined raking his back while he fucked her. Nearly six feet tall in her running shoes, she was the perfect height for him. He wouldn’t have to contort his nearly six-foot-eight-inch body to match up the essential parts with those of a pocket-size lover. The way he’d had to do with his ex-wife and practically every other woman he’d ever played with.

Those gorgeous green eyes glittered when she gave him the once-over. She made him feel like a chick magnet, and he liked it. “I’m Jimmy Bronson. Want to go out for a drink after we finish working out?” he asked her once he managed to find his voice.

“How about going up to my place? I think I can put together something for us to nibble on.” She spoke low, soft and inviting—and smooth. Her tongue darted out and moistened lips he was already imagining would taste as sweet as honey.

“Nibble?” He’d like to nibble on her, but he figured it might be a little too soon for that. “I usually take my food in great big bites.”

She laughed. “I’m sure you do. But I think I’ve got what it takes to keep you from starving.”

I’m sure you do, beautiful. And it won’t involve us going anywhere near your kitchen. “Okay. I’m game. I’m almost finished with my routine.” He forced himself to follow his list, do two more sets of bench presses while she looked on.

Chapter Two

Once inside her condo Jimmy’s gaze settled on the nude, life-size, full-body shot above Julie’s mantel. His mouth went slack. “You’re the woman in the ads for that perfume. I wondered when I saw you in the elevator this morning.”

She hoped his wide-eyed look reflected anything except shock, or maybe revulsion. “Guilty. The photographer liked that pose best. It bothered him that the advertiser didn’t choose it, so he enlarged it and gave me a copy. Like it?” Hardly embarrassed by her nudity, having been in the modeling business for years, she sent up a silent prayer that he wasn’t taken aback by it—or by her in-your-face bald head.

“Yeah. I like it. A lot. Ever since I first saw one of those perfume ads I’ve been determined to find and meet you. You’re one gorgeous woman, but you know that, don’t you?”

She shrugged then shot him a full-fledged smile. “I’m not so sure, but I’ve heard it before. Conceit becomes an occupational hazard when you’ve been in the modeling business as long as I have. Can I get you a drink?”

“Water, please.”

The hot way he looked at her made her think he didn’t want anything to dull his senses. Neither did she. She pulled out two bottles of Perrier, poured some from each bottle into cut-crystal stemmed glasses. If her instincts were right, she’d want to recall every minute, too. She hoped Jimmy would like the real woman as much as he seemed to be enthralled by her images in the ads for Emerald Seduction. “Want to share some secrets?” she asked as she sat beside him, thigh to thigh.

“Sure. I’ve got a Fathead on my bedroom wall. Nothing as classy as your portrait, but I guess you could say it’s just as narcissistic since it’s a big plastic me wearing a Rebels uniform. They sent it to me to approve after I posed for the master last month.”

“Hmmm. Maybe I’d like one of those for my wall, too. The one in my bedroom.” Actually Julie was pretty sure she wanted Jimmy in all three dimensions, commanding her pleasure. “You know you’re pretty awesome.”

He laid a huge hand on her thigh, squeezed. “I try. Not just on the football field, either.”

“Show me?”

“Oh, yeah.” For such big hands, his were gentle when he clasped hers then slid them up her bare arms. “I like silky smooth skin on a woman. And I can hardly wait to play with those cute little rings in your nipples. They are for real, aren’t they?” He glanced at the portrait again, grinned.

“Yes sir, they’re real. Just waiting for you to play. I like big, strong men who’re into dominating their woman. You seem like a take-charge sort of guy.” She took his hand, noticed his long fingers and short, neatly trimmed nails as she laid it over her breast. The heat of his big hand made her flesh tingle. “I bet you’re into BDSM games. Am I right?”

“Uh-huh. How’d you know?”

“Just a feeling.” She wouldn’t mention how she’d spent a good many years in the BDSM scene with her ex. Not yet, anyway.

“You’re right. I’m a Dom. And, beautiful lady, I’ve got a fetish I’ve recently discovered.” Gently he found her nipple beneath her clothes, tweaked the ring. “By the way, I love playing with a woman’s nipple rings.”

A fetish? Was it possible he meant seeing her bald head in the ads turned him on? Or was that wishful thinking? Her nipple hardened under his sensuous play, and her pulse raced. “I’ve got a ring in my clit, too, but you can’t see it, the way the photographer posed me for that portrait. Tell me what you’d like to do to me, assuming you have me willing to become your obedient slave.”

He grinned. “I’ll devour every inch of you with my hands and mouth. Delight in your satin skin, your hard little nipples and your pink, naked cunt. I’ll fuck you until neither of us can walk. And when I claim you as my slave, I’ll mark you somewhere nobody else but me will ever see.” He paused, lowered his voice to a husky whisper. “Someday if you’ll let me, I’ll shave your head again. Not for an ad this time, but for my own pleasure…and yours.”

Her heart beat faster, and her breathing grew shallow as she imagined him doing what so far had been done to her impersonally, by strangers. Moisture pooled between her legs. She couldn’t remember ever having been so aroused, so quickly. “I want you to kiss me now, please.”

“My pleasure.” He claimed her mouth, softly at first then harder, more insistently. His tongue teased her lips then delved inside, seeking. His arms tightened around her, pressing her nipples to the muscular wall of his chest and making them tingle. Though he hadn’t touched her below the waist, her clit hardened and her pussy gushed with anticipation.

Then he scooped her up and carried her to her bedroom as if she weighed nothing. “I want you naked,” he ordered when he set her down and tore off his shoes and clothes.

Omigod. He’s huge all over. And he’s gorgeous.

Naked, Jimmy took her breath away. Not an ounce of fat marred his massive, muscular body. Tanned, with a sprinkling of light-brown hair from neck to ankle, he had two elaborate tattoos. One was a monochrome Celtic-knot band that circled his left upper arm, the other an identical design that encircled the cleanly shaved base of his long, thick cock. The body art drew her gaze to the pulsating, blue-veined shaft and mouthwatering, plum-colored head. God, just looking at his beautiful cock made her pussy contract.

Her mouth watered when she imagined herself taking him in her mouth, licking and sucking him like a giant, succulent lollipop. His sac hung loose, and because his crotch was shaved smooth, his testicles were plainly evident—two large oval orbs framed between hard-muscled thighs as thick as tree trunks. She couldn’t help pausing to gawk at his incredibly hot body.

He grabbed some plastic-wrapped condoms from his wallet and tossed them on the bedside table. “Take off your clothes. Now.” His tone brooked no disobedience. The sound of his deep, authoritative voice made her juices gush as she struggled to peel down her tights and carefully slip off her Lycra workout top so she wouldn’t disturb her makeup. “Omigod, yeah. There’s nothing I like better than nibbling a satiny smooth cunt.”

“Really? I suspect you might like nibbling a smooth scalp better.” She wanted to shock him, find out for sure if he shared her personal kink. Smiling, she slid her fingers through her hair, pretended she was about to lift off a wig.

“What the fuck?” His eyes seemed glued to her hair, and the words came out harsh, guttural. She brought her hands to her sides, saw his disappointed look.

“No such luck, at least right now. It’s been over a year since they shot the pictures for those ads.” Raising her hand back to her head, she stepped forward, offered him the lock from between her fingers. “I have another photo shoot scheduled for next month, though. If you want to, you can be the one to shave me for it. I doubt many men would get off doing that, but I have a feeling you might. I know I would.” Imagining him taking her hair in what she pictured as her ultimate act of submission was incredibly arousing.

His cock rose rampant against his flat abs, and his eyes seemed glued to her hair. “Baby, you’d be right. I’m ready to come, just thinking about taking your gorgeous hair, rubbing my hands and cock all over your beautiful bald head. Maybe in a club scene, with you on your knees sucking me off.” He bent, tongued the spot above her ear until she moaned from the sensual torture. “Meanwhile, I want…”

“What do you want, Jimmy?”

He laid her across the bed and covered her with his big, hard body. “I want to taste you first, see if you’re as soft and smooth as you look. Then I want you to go down on me while I play with your hair…touch your gorgeous face. I want to suck your pretty breasts, tongue your hard little nipples. Then I want to fuck you until you scream with pleasure.

“Ever since I saw that ad, I’ve been obsessing over you. But you’re so much better in the flesh.” Planting his knees on either side of her hips, he bent and claimed her mouth again. He slid his tongue inside while using his hands to hold her steady. His tongue felt like hot velvet, and she loved the way he cupped her breasts with both of his large, calloused hands, using surprisingly agile fingers to play with her nipple rings. His breath seared her as he moved, fucking her mouth, taking gentle nips with his teeth, sensuous licks. Deep plunges that made her pussy ache for him to fill it.

His rock-hard cock probed between her legs, almost as if it were seeking her heat. “Oh God, baby, you’re so damn wet for me,” he whispered, his voice deep, mesmerizing, spoken against the taut flesh of one distended nipple.

“Do you mind?”

“Mind? Hell, no. I love it. You’re like a banquet, and I’m having trouble deciding what I want to feast on next.” His hot breath sent shivers down her spine as he found her pussy and dipped into it with one long finger while cupping his big hand over her clit. So hot. So sensual. It had been years—no, she couldn’t remember ever feeling quite this way before.

She ground her hips into his crotch, dug into his muscular shoulders with her nails. “Please fuck me.”

“Yeah, baby. God yeah.” He ripped open the condom, put it on and buried his massive cock all the way to her core. She’d never felt so full, so owned. “Squeeze me.”

She clamped down on him with her inner muscles. He filled her completely, his rigid flesh stretching her almost painfully as he dipped his head and began to lick and suck her throat, her neck, her earlobes. Then he began to fuck her, first slowly then faster, harder.

With every thrust he touched her womb. Pressure built inside her from deep in her belly, radiating in maddening slowness through every nerve in her body. “Oh yes. You feel so good.”

He reached down, bit her nipples, grabbed the rings with his teeth and tugged. Her muscles clenched around his huge, hot cock. She moaned, tottering on the edge, trying to hold back…

“Okay, baby. Come for me. Now.”

One fierce thrust then two, and on the third she shattered, trembling against his relentless onslaught. He pulled out as she still was shuddering with her climax. He sat up on the edge of the bed and pushed her down onto the carpet until she was kneeling between his rock-hard thighs. “Get rid of the condom. I want to feel your pretty mouth on my bare flesh.”

“Oh, yes.” Her hands still trembling from the force of her climax, she peeled away the condom and discarded it, her hungry gaze on a glistening drop of lubrication in his slit.

With sure hands he guided her mouth to the purplish, thick head of his cleanly circumcised cock, and dug his fingers into her hair to guide her to his will. “Relax, baby. Swallow me. You can do it.” He rubbed her throat with his thumbs, encouraging her, exerting enough pressure on her head to make her take him all the way down her throat. Not that she’d have resisted. She loved the texture, the taste—but most of all she loved the feeling of submission that came over her as she knelt at his feet and serviced him this way.

Her pussy still throbbed, the slick juices wetting her thighs as she sucked him down her throat, swallowing against his turgid length. She held his heavy scrotum in both hands, loving the way the twin orbs shifted against her fingers as he rhythmically stroked her head.

Mentally she pictured how she must look now, a picture of pure submission kneeling between his hard-muscled thighs, sucking his cock. Forced, for he held her head securely in his large, powerful hands, yet not forced at all because she wanted nothing more than to submit, to be all he wanted, all he needed.

“Oh yeah, baby.” He moaned then stiffened as he bathed her throat with the first burst of hot, salty ejaculate. “That’s it, swallow it. Now let go, I want to come all over your hair, too.” He stroked around her hairline with his cock head as hot bursts kept coming, dripping over her face, her neck. “You’re so damn beautiful, and baby, you’re mine.”

* * * * *

She had a feeling that if she spent a lot of time with Jimmy, she’d frequently be without her hair. But it didn’t matter. There would be compensations—like his huge, sheathed cock now throbbing inside her pussy as they sat on the shower seat and he gently sucked her nipples. Like the feel of his magical hands on her scalp, the way they were now as he worked shampoo and conditioner into her hair. What he was doing shot sparks of sexual sensation deep inside her core.

For a man as young as he was, he knew how to take a woman over, make her want to please him. A Dom without a doubt, yet one with a sweetness about him that she found endearing and terribly arousing.

One day soon she’d kneel before him and he’d shave her for his pleasure. And her own. Never mind that she’d have to do it anyway for the photo shoot. She trembled with greedy anticipation, acknowledged the fetish they shared. When her marriage died, she had thought she was walking away from the BDSM scene forever, but now…

Now she found herself eagerly anticipating rejoining it, this time as Jimmy’s obedient sex slave.

“Baby, I could spend the rest of my life doing this. I love…” He paused, drew one nipple into his mouth and tweaked the ring with his tongue. “I love everything about you. Does this feel good?”

“Oh, yes.” It had been too long since a man had possessed her this way, taken her over and commanded her response. She felt taken. Controlled as no one lover had done before. Protected by a Master she trusted would never let her come to harm.

He raised his head, claimed her mouth and fucked it with his tongue, slow and gentle, hot wet velvet exploring her teeth, the back of her throat. He jerked inside her, and she sank all the way down his rigid shaft until the head of his cock pressed the mouth of her womb. He ground against her swollen clit and made it throb. When he stood, taking her with him under the bursting needles of hot water, he drove in deeper, groaned as he wrapped her legs around his waist and braced her back against the shower wall.

“My hot, gorgeous baby. Oh, yeah, squeeze my cock. Like that.” She tightened her inner muscles around his heat, felt the start of another orgasm brewing inside her. When he bent, lifted her hair and licked that erogenous zone at the base of her skull, she shattered, tightening her legs around his firm, pumping ass as he fucked her hard and deep while she spasmed around him.

“God, yes.” Through the condom she felt his climax, the jetting heat of him spilling against the tip of her womb. She shuddered again, not sure whether what she was feeling was a new orgasm or aftershocks of those that had torn through her before.

* * * * *

A long time later he wrapped them both in a pale-pink bath sheet, stroked her bare skin with the thirsty Egyptian cotton. Then when they were dry, he laid her in the middle of her bed and came down beside her, spoon-fashion. With one huge hand he held her belly, pressing her ass cheeks against his half-hard cock, while with the other hand he secured the back of her head to his lightly furred chest.

“Go to sleep now,” he said gruffly. “I want to wake up and find you warm and snuggly against me, the way you are right now.”

She wanted to hold on to this feeling of utter belonging she’d been missing…it seemed like forever. And so she obeyed.

* * * * *

The next morning Jimmy woke first and roused Julie by burying his face in her sweet, wet cunt. He sucked her clit ring between his teeth and worried the little bud of flesh with his tongue. God, but she responded fast, her clit hardening and elongating. She spread her legs farther apart and shifted to give him better access.

His cock was hard as stone, throbbing for the wet heat of her pussy. He sure as hell could get used to waking up this way.

Slow down, buddy. Belinda’s two-timing face flashed through his mind, reminding him of his vow never again to hand a woman his heart so she could butcher it.

He didn’t want to listen, not now when Julie was tangling her fingers in his hair, making little mewling sounds while he tongue-fucked her cunt. All he wanted at the moment was to shut down his brain and go with his obsession to heights of pleasure even beyond what they’d found last night.

Damn. He just remembered. He’d used all three of the condoms from his wallet last night. He looked up at her. “Julie?”

“Yes?” She shot him a sleepy, sexy smile.

“I’m out of condoms.”

Her smile faded. “Oh, no. I don’t have any. I’m sorry. It’s been a long time since I needed one.”

“My fault, baby. I should have stopped by my apartment first before we came up here. I would have if I’d realized…” How she would keep him with a constant hard-on. That she’d turn out to be his living fantasy. His obsession. “Relax. I’ll get you off this way,” he said, dipping his head and going back to sucking and tonguing her soft, baby-smooth pussy.

“If you’ll turn around and straddle me, I’ll return the favor. I hope you’ll let me swallow this time.” Her voice was husky, the tone conveying urgency.

Because Jimmy was so tall, sixty-nine had been a physical impossibility with his wife. Why the fuck was that bitch invading his head? It struck him then that Belinda had been the only other woman he’d ever fucked in private, outside a club scene or fraternity orgy. Shifting positions and going immediately back to his feast, he shuddered when he felt Julie take his cock down her throat, swallowing hard then letting go, sliding off him until just his cock head rested in her mouth, surrounded by her dancing tongue.

He couldn’t think, only feel. Julie’s mouth on him. His lips and tongue feasting on her slick juices. With what she was doing to him, he wasn’t going to last long. Her little grunts when she took him deep, the slurping sounds of him eating her pussy pushed him higher. He breathed in the arousing smells of sex—his and hers—as he plunged his tongue deep inside her cunt and tried to hold back his own orgasm.

She sucked him, hard, her tongue finding and tasting the lubrication already leaking from his slit. Just as he was about to flex his hips and force her to take him deep again, she did it—surrounded his entire cock again and swallowed. Needing to give her a climax before he shattered, he licked her outer lips, sucked her clit, rimmed her tight little asshole with a finger until she shuddered beneath him, devouring him all the time with her licking and sucking and swallowing convulsively against his cock. Massaging his balls and rimming his asshole with nimble fingers.

Fuck, but she gave the best head he’d ever had. While he kept sucking her pussy, she came again before his own climax claimed him.

“Julie.” Even her name sounded sexy when he said it.

She lifted her head, looking thoroughly exhausted. Satiated. And incredibly gorgeous. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure, baby. What say we get up, go have breakfast and spend the day playing tourist?”

“I’d love it.”

He got up before his cock could convince him to forget about eating, forget everything but staying in bed all day, sampling more of her. “Come on then, my stomach’s growling. You’ve burned off all my energy, so I need to refuel.”

“Where are we going?” she asked, stretching in the bed like a big, satisfied kitten.

He didn’t know exactly, other than being damn sure he wanted to get to know Julie better, and not only in the carnal sense. “It’s a surprise.” Pulling her to her feet, he hugged her, fought down the urge to tumble back into bed with her and forget all about everything but gorging himself on her until he passed out from the pleasure of it. “Shower and throw on something casual while I run to my apartment and change.”

“Yes, Sir.”

He kissed her hard then straightened and pulled on his exercise clothes. “Fifteen minutes, tops,” he told her, feasting his eyes on her one more time before making himself break away.

On the way out he glanced at her portrait, recalled her saying she’d have to shave her head again for a new photo shoot. His wrung-out cock hardened at the thought. But his hard-on for Julie didn’t depend on him indulging his fetish—he figured he’d lust for her day and night, hair or no hair.

Chapter Three

When she met him at her door a few minutes later, Jimmy didn’t know what he’d expected, but it wasn’t the wholesome, almost innocent-looking beauty with raven-black hair held away from her scrubbed, makeup-free face with a white terry headband. He hadn’t pictured her wearing those loose-fitting shorts or the modest, dark-green cotton knit tank top, either. The woman who’d turned him every way but loose last night looked like a lady of whom even his mom would approve. Not that Julie wasn’t still gorgeous and incredibly sexy, because she was.

She gave him no hint of the erotic creature in the ad he’d fallen in lust with, but part of him was glad. That image was etched in his brain, and it didn’t bother him a bit that strangers who looked at her wouldn’t see her that way.

That surprised Jimmy a little. He’d pretty much persuaded himself during his marriage that it turned him on to have other men ogling Belinda with her tight, slutty outfits and in-your-face sexiness. The last year with her had taught him a lot of lessons, though, and helped him grow up a little, he supposed, as he bent and kissed Julie before taking her hand and heading downstairs and out of the condo building.

“You look great. Too good to be hanging out with a big lug like me.”

She laughed then stood on tiptoe and kissed the ticklish spot where his neck met his shoulder. “I think you look pretty good yourself.”

He was glad he’d dug a clean polo shirt and khaki cargo shorts out, instead of the t-shirt and exercise shorts that were his usual casual attire. “I thought we’d have breakfast at one of the places here on River Street and then check out the sights. I’m hoping you’ll show me around. I’ve only been in Savannah a couple of months.”

“I’d love to. This has always been one of my favorite places. I grew up not too far from Savannah, left when I was eighteen and moved back from Manhattan two years ago. For a long time I wondered if I hadn’t just been running away, trying to escape bad memories. But now I’m glad I did.”

When she looked up at him, a soft smile on her face, his heart practically stopped. “I’m glad, too.” He’d been comfortable lusting after Julie, but now as he realized he wanted friendship, too, something akin to panic gripped him. Idiot. You and Belinda used to be friends, too.

Quickly he changed the subject. “How about some good old-fashioned Southern cooking?” he asked, spying the stone front and cheery-red awning of a familiar café farther down the block.

“I’m ready. Bernie’s is one of my favorite places for brunch. I love their country ham and biscuits.”

Picking up their pace, he led the way to the small, quaint restaurant and settled them at one of the tables in front so they could look out over the Savannah River.

Somehow he’d had the idea that supermodels ate like birds, but Julie surprised him and cleaned her plate while he called for a second order of eggs and bacon. “Tell me about yourself.” When he met her gaze from across the table, it struck him that he wanted to know all about what made her tick. He cautioned himself not to get in too deep, but he had a feeling that warning was likely to go unheeded.

“As I mentioned before, I’m an old Georgia girl. Born and raised near Macon.” Her smile wavered when she mentioned her parents’ death in a car accident when she was seventeen, the fact she had no close relatives left. “If they’d lived I imagine I might have dug my feet into the Georgia clay, settled down and raised my own family within yelling distance of home.

“But I didn’t. Guess I was running from my grief, but as soon as I got my high school diploma I bolted for New York City. Applied with a modeling agency, got some good jobs, got married and divorced.”

“So what brought you back?” Jimmy sipped his coffee, tried to picture the man who’d have let a woman like Julie slip through his hands.

As if trying to figure that out for herself, Julie stared out the window for a long time at the cobblestone street and the boats moving slowly along the river. She lifted her cup, drank a little tea then looked at Jimmy and spoke. “Homing instinct, I guess. I needed a new scene, a place where I didn’t have to face the fact I’m no longer seventeen, no longer playing at a happy marriage…” Her words trailed off, and she tore her gaze away.

“How long were you married?”

“Nine years. Mostly playing in the BDSM club scene. Lloyd was the talent agent who got me my first modeling assignment. I thought he was the perfect Master—that is, until he dumped me for my hairdresser. My male hairdresser.” She laughed, a nervous little sound that conveyed anything but mirth. “I think it would have hurt less if he’d tossed me out for another woman.”

Jimmy reached over and took her hand, rubbed his thumb gently over hers. Fuck, he didn’t know what to say. Sure, he knew some guys who swung both ways, including a couple of his new teammates. The two tight ends—one was married and they shared his wife and each other in scenes at Rebels’ Roost. He’d seen guys sucking and fucking each other in club scenes. But Jimmy liked pussy. And he sure as hell couldn’t picture any man preferring another woman to Julie, much less another man.

The silence was beginning to hang unpleasantly between them. “He had to be insane.” That came out louder than he intended, drew the attention of the waiter.

“Not insane. Just scared somebody would out him to his very proper family, and willing to live in the shadows with his decoy—me—and escape whenever he could into the club scene where he could indulge his darkest fantasies.” She fiddled with her cup, her fingertips clutching at the warmth. “That is, until he couldn’t take the lying anymore.”

Jimmy was feeling closed in, too. “Let’s get out of here.” He glanced at the bill then stood and fished a couple of twenties from his wallet. By the time he laid them on the table and looked for Julie, she’d already headed outside.

What was there about Jimmy that had made her need to spill her guts? It wasn’t as though they were lifelong friends, or even long-term fuck buddies. Fighting back the urge to cry, Julie held on to the wrought iron rail and tried to focus on the gently rolling river below.

She felt his body heat and realized he’d come up behind her. As though he knew she needed to get herself collected, he didn’t say anything, just splayed his big hands over her belly and drew her close. They stayed that way a long time, as boats came and went like time in slow motion and tourists flowed by them on the street, barely noticed.

“Sorry for dumping all the angst on you,” she mumbled, covering his hands with hers and leaning closer so her words would carry on the breeze.

“No problem, baby. I’m glad you figured I’d understand. I just have trouble imagining any man wanting another woman when he had you, let alone a guy. But then I’m disgustingly hetero.”

Unlike her ex, Jimmy had to bend to whisper in her ear. His size and obvious strength made her feel protected, although he’d left no doubt in her mind that he’d enslave her sexually without a qualm. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah. I’m sure. I can’t get hard thinking about having sex with anybody else, male or female, when I’m this close to you.”

“Not even in a club scene?”

He nipped her earlobe, blew gently on it. “Nope. Not that I haven’t enjoyed threesomes every now and then, or even the occasional orgy among friends. But I’ve never gotten into the guy-on-guy action. For the most part, I’m into mastering just one woman at a time.”

His cock swelled and hardened against her spine. Good thing he had on loose cargo shorts or he might just have an obvious problem if they broke apart and started strolling down the sidewalk. “You do a great job of that.” She hesitated then turned and brushed her lips across his cheek. “Master.”

“Am I?”

For a Dom, he sounded a little hesitant. “If you want to be. You’ve probably figured out from my confession session that I’m older than you—that is, if you hadn’t already guessed by looking at me.”

He let his hands drop to his sides, stared for a long time toward the opposite riverbank. Finally he moved beside her and turned her to face him, holding both her hands as firmly as the strongest set of steel handcuffs could manage. “A little, probably. But it doesn’t matter. Age is just a number. Forget about that, and Lloyd and his hairdresser, and show me your beautiful smile.”

How could she help obeying? Being near him made her feel happy, protected. She felt her sadness dissipate on a gentle gust of wind off the river when she arranged her face into a smile that felt surprisingly genuine. “How’s this?” she asked, her gaze locked on his expressive brown eyes.

“Much better, baby. Let’s go get us some dessert. One of the guys on the team was saying the other day that this place called River Street Sweets makes the best pralines on earth.”

“They do. You’ll have to keep me back, or I’ll be likely to gobble so many of them that I’ll eat myself right out of my livelihood.” She laughed as they made a beeline down the walkway toward the store that oozed potential obesity.

Jimmy took her arm, herded her through the noisy crowd of mostly college kids, with the occasional retiree couple and young family sprinkled in. “Is it always this crowded on River Street?”

“This isn’t half bad. You ought to come here on a weekend when fall sets in, after it starts to cool off. All the nightspots rock, dusk to dawn.”

“Nothing like centuries ago, when some of these places were built,” Jimmy said, his tone a little wistful as he looked at the ornate ironwork on the balcony of a century-old building.

“No. I imagine it would have felt a lot different, back when ships came up the river to load their cotton and rice from these buildings. Ladies in hoopskirts carrying parasols, gentlemen in string ties and vests, and sporting chin whiskers.”

He fingered his goatee as they took a spot at the candy-store counter to wait their turn. “Well, I’ve got the chin whiskers, anyhow.”

“Yes, you do.” Julie squeezed his hand. “I like the way they tickle my…” She’d have said “pussy” but she didn’t want to scandalize the pair of older, conservatively dressed women standing next to them.

“You do?” He sounded surprised.

“Uh-huh. You look good, too.”

Jimmy grinned. “Glad you think so. My ex hated the facial hair, but I didn’t grow it for her. I found out my rookie year that my helmet strap feels better when there’s a cushion between it and my chin.”

Before Julie could ask him about this “ex”, the busy counter clerk came up to take their order. Soon they headed outside, Jimmy carrying a small bag with four pralines that he set between them on a bench overlooking the river.

When he took two of the candies out and handed her one, she took a bite. “You mentioned an ex. Want to tell me about what happened?”

“Same thing as happens to a lot of kids who marry right out of college. We’d been together what seemed like forever, but the marriage didn’t last two years.” Frowning as though he didn’t want to talk about it, he downed a praline in one bite. “You’re right, these are damn good.”

Julie sensed there was more to it than simply growing up and apart from one another, but she wasn’t going to pry. “Yes, they are.” For a long time they sat, watching boats go by. The silence soon got deafening.

Then Jimmy turned to her and took her hand. “We got into BDSM games. Pretty soon Belinda started playing with older Doms at the club whenever I was out of town for away games. And sometimes when I was home. End of story.”

When he let her hand go and looked back out at the river, Julie knew the breakup affected him more than he admitted. “It obviously bothered you. Understandably.”

“Yeah. The reason I’m here instead of spending time back home before training camp starts next week is because I don’t think I could run into her without wanting to do something…”

“I’m sorry, Jimmy.”

He looked at Julie again, and she saw the hurt look in his eyes. “Wouldn’t be so bad if her dad wasn’t the foreman at my parents’ ranch. He lives not even a mile from the main house, so she could pop in any time.”

“That has to be hard.”

“Not so much anymore.” He paused. “But we started dating in seventh grade. I still can’t go home and remember the good times we had there without getting pissed all over again. I can’t keep from remembering, though, especially knowing she could breeze in any day, right onto the Lazy B.”

Julie wondered why Jimmy’s parents kept the woman’s father on but figured it wasn’t her business. “In time the hurt will go away. The first time I went back to New York for a photo shoot, I ran into Lloyd and Rico on the street in midtown Manhattan. They looked happy as clams while I was still an emotional wreck. I went to my hotel room and cried for hours. After a couple of years I was able to run into them and feel nothing at all.” Well, not really. There was that small twinge of regret that she’d been so blind for so long, believing Lloyd was just busy the weeks at a time when he ignored her between gorging them on BDSM sessions at the club. But she didn’t need to tell Jimmy that.

When he turned to her, he wore a determined grin. “I’ll live, baby. But thanks for listening. We’ve been working off our breakfast for a couple of hours now, and I’m getting hungry again. What say we go check out the seafood at that famous restaurant up on Broad Street? Are you up for some stair-climbing?”

He didn’t have to tell her it was an appetite-boosting climb from the cobblestone-paved River Street up to Bay Street and a short walk from there to the restaurant, but the prospect of eating the Southern-style fare while getting a breathtaking, panoramic view of the river and historic sites made the trek worth the effort. “Sure. Can’t do River Street without going to the Pirates’ House.”

Good thing they both were in great shape. Otherwise they’d have been huffing and puffing like the couple behind them in line. They sipped their beers at the bar and waited for a table. “I wonder how many of these customers hiked up from River Street?” she asked casually.

“Most of them, I guess.” Jimmy drained his glass and set it on the bar.

The bartender grinned. “Most locals come in from Bay Street. You must be tourists.”

“Newcomers. At least Jimmy is. He plays for the Rebels.”

The bartender held out a hand. “Hey, I recognize you. Jimmy Bronson. The sackmaster. How’s Savannah treatin’ you so far?”

Jimmy smiled. “Just fine. How long is it gonna be before we get to eat?”

Julie figured he must be hungry again. It must take a lot of fuel to keep his huge body going. “I bet we could eat in here if we get the buffet.”

“That’s right,” the bartender said. “Service isn’t as good, but I’ll see you get taken care of. Fried chicken’s the main course, but there’s lots of other stuff—crab cakes and sweet potatoes and turnip greens. You get bread and dessert, too.”

Jimmy looked at Julie. “That okay with you, baby?”

She nodded. “I love Southern cooking. It reminds me of home. I have to be careful, though, or I’ll eat myself right out of a job.”

“You look great. Hot as hell. Not bone thin like some models I’ve run into.”

Julie noticed the sincere expression on his face as he looked down at her. “I used to be, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve switched from high-fashion modeling to doing ad layouts where my face is more important than how my body looks in clothes.”

“It looks fine to me, baby. Come on, let’s dig into the food. I love buffets.” He grinned. “Next week training camp starts, and I’d better love them, because that’s what I’ll get every day. Today I want to chow down. We’ll take the buffet, then, Sam.”

The fact that Jimmy bothered to note the bartender’s name impressed Julie. Lloyd had never treated the people who served him as individuals. She had often wondered how he managed to remember her own name.

* * * * *

“Do you want to go to the club tonight?” Jimmy asked when they got back to their condo building and were waiting for the elevator. “Or should we stay in and get to know each other better?”

She didn’t know. There was the exciting prospect of playing with him in a BDSM club setting. But then a dungeon wasn’t exactly the sort of place to get to know a lover better, a fact she’d learned during the breakup with Lloyd. “You’re the Master,” she said lightly.

“Yeah, I am that. And I want to spend time alone with my beautiful sub before I share her with anybody, even if the sharing doesn’t involve swapping.” He frowned. “Sorry, babe, it’s gonna take a while before I build up enough trust again to let my woman feel pleasure from somebody else, even in a club scene.”

It would have thrilled Julie if she’d ever heard that from Lloyd. By the end, he’d treated her like a prop—nothing more than a convenient female to set the stage for the orgies he orchestrated. But that was past. She was with Jimmy now. Though she had no illusions that their relationship would last, considering the age difference and disparity in career interests, she intended to enjoy the invigorating, arousing ride. “Let’s stay here, then.”

“Okay. How about us working out first and then holing up at my place? Mind you it’s a temporary pad—I’m having a house built out on the Intracoastal Waterway—and nowhere near as plush as your condo.”

They stepped inside the elevator and pushed the buttons to their respective floors. “I’d like that,” Julie said before he stepped out on the fourth floor, leaving her to go change at her own condo.

* * * * *

Sweating had never felt so good. Jimmy finished a third set of bench presses and set the barbell back on the rack so he could catch his breath and watch Julie work out on the stair-climber to cool down.

God, but she was strong as well as gorgeous. Not like a female bodybuilder, though. Her body was smooth and toned, not bunched up with overdeveloped muscles like a man’s. He guessed they both worked out like fanatics because their jobs required it—hers so she would look good for the cameras, his because playing defensive end in the NFL required extraordinary strength and agility.

He moved to the next station, set the pins for the weights he wanted and positioned himself under the bar for squats. By the time he finished, his thighs and glutes were burning. Time to hit the free weights and do some dumbbell curls and then cool down. His mind wandered to his apartment, more specifically to the bed with Julie in it.

* * * * *

She might be thirty-five, but Jimmy made her feel young. Desirable in a way no fawning photographer or agent ever had. Nude, she stretched across the soft Egyptian cotton sheet on Jimmy’s bed and looked at the life-size vinyl poster of him that stared down at her while he showered and shaved.

“You look downright fierce,” she called out toward the open bathroom door. “I’d like to see you in your uniform one of these days.”

“You will. In about a month. Season’s almost on us now.”

She remembered the bartender had called him something. What was it? Oh, yes. Sackmaster. “Why did Sam call you the sackmaster?”

“Because I specialize in sacking quarterbacks. That means, pretty lady, that I’m good at getting to them and throwing them to the ground before they can make their throws.”

Naked but for a towel slung over his shoulders, he came out, his hair damp and tousled as he stared at her. The hot look in his eyes practically scalded her. “Omigod, baby, I like the way you look in my bed. I think I’ll keep you there.”

As she watched, he dug soft restraints from a dresser drawer and looped them expertly around her wrists and ankles. “You’ve done this a few times before, haven’t you, Master?”

“A few. I’ll have to get you some toys, though, because I don’t keep them around, just in case. Hold on.” Purposefully, he left the bedroom, mumbling under his breath.

Where was he going? Julie heard a door opening and closing in another room. The kitchen, she guessed, because it sounded too far away to be the living room next door. “Jimmy?”

“Comin’, baby.” When he came back, he had his hand held behind him. “This ought to make do until I get to a toy store. It might be pretty cold, though.”

“What?”

“This.” He showed her a large, dark-green cucumber. “Want it?”

“Oh, yes.” She’d never been fucked by a vegetable but she found the idea surprisingly arousing as she watched him slide it into a condom. “Are you—”

“I am, but first I want to taste you.” His tongue on her toe felt like warm silk, and he made a path up her calf and thigh that sent waves of excitement straight up to her cunt. “You’re so fucking beautiful,” he muttered as he found her damp labia and stroked with his tongue.

Julie felt beautiful. Desired. This was a Master who’d protect and keep her, for as long as it lasted. She wouldn’t dare think about forever. With what he was doing to her clit now, sucking and tonguing it, she could barely think at all.

His cheeks felt smooth, a delightful contrast with the rasp of his goatee and mustache on her most sensitive flesh. She wanted to touch him, too, but she was well restrained. For his pleasure, but for hers, too.

“This is gonna be cold. I want you to warm it up for me.” He kissed her cunt first then worked the sheathed cucumber in and out, a little at first then more.

She shivered. “That feels…weird.” Not like him or anybody else who’d ever fucked her. “Good, though. It’s getting warm now.”

He laid his head on her belly, tongued her navel. “You ought to have a big diamond here. Maybe I’ll get you one. Would you like that, baby?”

She laughed. “I’d hate to wear a monster diamond where most folks would never see it.” When he worked the cucumber in and out of her cunt, she shuddered. She wasn’t used to playful games along with her BDSM experiences, but she found she liked it. Maybe it was just that she liked Jimmy.

Withdrawing the cucumber, he set it aside and straddled her face. “Swallow my cock.”

When she did, he braced her head in both his huge hands and laced his fingers through her hair. “Imagine how my scissors will feel, cutting this off as close as I can to your gorgeous scalp.” He slid his cock over her tongue and past her gag reflex as he spoke in a soft, mesmerizing voice.

She couldn’t talk, so she tongued him furiously, swallowed the salty lubrication that already was escaping from his slit. God, but he had her so hot she was about to explode.

“Then I’ll run the clippers over you like this—” He made a buzzing noise as he moved his hands rapidly over her head. “And I’ll rub my cock all over the stubble. Then while I shave you, I’ll make you suck me some more. You’ll come when I tell you to, at the first touch of the razor.”

She was coming now, huge bursts of sensation that began in her mouth and sped down to her nipples, her belly, her wet cunt. “Mmmm.” Her attempt to speak against his cock head sent delicious vibrations through her.

“Oh, yeah. When I’ve got you as soft and smooth as you are in that picture, I’ll come all over your head and massage it in. Oh God. I’m coming now just thinking about it.”

Spurt after spurt of his salty, thick ejaculate flooded her mouth, so hard and fast she could hardly swallow fast enough. Her cunt clenched and she came again and again while she kept sucking out his semen.

“Stop, baby, I’m gonna fuck you now.”

Amazingly he was still hard as stone when he rolled on a condom and rammed his huge organ into her pussy. “Oh, yes!” She clenched him with her inner muscles. If only this could go on forever. If only…

She wanted the freedom to pleasure him, consume him, be not only his submissive but his lover. But she hadn’t changed.

As Julie had learned long ago, she was a pure sexual submissive. She got pleasure from pleasing her lover. It pleased Jimmy, obviously, to have her bound and helpless. Lifting her hips as much as she could to meet his thrusts, she tried desperately to maintain the contact, keep him inside her as long as she could.

And when he came again, he swept her along with him.

Chapter Four

She was the hottest woman he’d ever had. And the most breathtakingly gorgeous, especially now with her eyes shining up at him as though she thought he was the lover of her wildest dreams. Jimmy loosened the restraints and gathered her in his arms.

God, but he loved the way she ran her hands over him as she snuggled as close as she could get. As though she wanted to crawl inside him. He could get used to having her in the flesh, so much better than in his erotic fantasies.

Fuck, he’d never wanted Belinda this much, never hesitated at the idea of taking her to a club, letting some other Dom see what was his.

His cock stirred again. It had apparently forgotten he’d wrung it out just moments ago. He ignored it, concentrating instead on Julie’s soft, silky skin brushing his belly, his chest. Her hair tickled his shoulder, made him run a hand through it as he imagined himself caressing all the erotic spots on her smooth, bare skull.

She’d said he could take her hair before she had her photo shoot. “Will you be going to New York to have your photos done?”

When she spoke, her soft words vibrated against his chest. “No. The photographer will come here. My agent insisted.”

He was insane to have fallen so hard, so fast that he wanted to keep her here, close by. But he couldn’t help it. If he had his way, he’d tie her to his bed, away from the millions of lecherous guys who’d like to fuck her. “I’m glad. May I watch?” He didn’t think he could stand being somewhere else while his woman made love to a camera lens—and maybe the guy behind it.

“Unless you’re working. Photo shoots generally take most of two days. They’re pretty boring, really, taking this pose and that one while the photographer fiddles with his lights and filters.”

“I’d like to have a shot of us like this.” He raised his body up on one elbow and smiled down at her. “Would your camera guy do it?”

She smiled but then her smile faded. “Some of these shots will be with a male model, Jimmy. Only a few body shots, but the advertiser will want some, so we’ll both be nude.”

He wanted to scream that he wouldn’t let her do it. But he had no say in the matter, no claim on her. “Fuck. Who’s the guy?” Some pretty-boy half his size, with a swimmer’s body and the sort of intent look that made most women drop their drawers, he bet.

“I don’t know. They’ll probably send someone down from New York. Unless you’d like to do it.” Her hand gentle, she rubbed his cheek then leaned up and nuzzled his goatee. “The man has to be shaved, too. I know because my agent mentioned how hard it was going to be to get one of the agency boys to give up his hair.”

Jimmy was no model, though he’d experienced a good many cameras flashing in his face since he’d gone pro. But how hard could it be to pose for a few photos with Julie? Not hard enough to keep him from volunteering to do it if his ugly mug would work. “How about you asking your agent if I’ll do?”

“I can’t think of anything I’d like better. And unless I miss my guess you’d look awesome without this. Wouldn’t you mind losing your hair, though?”

He laughed. “I bet I’d get as big a high out of you shaving me as I intend to get shaving you. And I’d probably like the feel of your pretty hands on my bald dome. I can imagine the scene we could have together, after the job’s done.”

“If you’re serious I’ll call Rick—he’s my agent—first thing in the morning. Or you could have your agent call him. You do have one, don’t you?”

Yeah, he had an agent. One who’d want his ten percent of any action he got, even if it wasn’t his usual gig, selling razor blades and underwear. “If you want me to, I’ll get hold of the guy who whores me out to advertisers. He’s got some photos he can send out, but the closest thing to a nude one, I’m wearing some manufacturer’s sissy designer briefs. Who should I tell him to call?”

“Rick Hecht at the Creighton Agency. If your guy’s in New York, I’m sure he’ll know the agency if not Rick himself.”

“Okay. Maybe I’ll end up being your guy in that ad, like I am in person.” Suddenly Jimmy wanted Julie again. All this talk about nude pictures and shaved heads had him horny as hell even though they’d gone at it for hours. “Come here now. I’m gonna fuck you ‘til neither of us can crawl out of bed.”

* * * * *

The next week, because Jimmy told her Coach Zanardi had asked him to have her keep an eye on his wife while they were away, Julie caught a ride to the Rebels’ training facility with Susan to tell the guys goodbye as they boarded a bus bound for summer training camp at a college over in Valdosta. The team facility surprised her with its sleek, modern lines and the luxurious dining room where the players had gathered.

“I’m already lonesome and it’s been less than an hour since they left,” Susan told Julie as they had breakfast later at Julie’s condo. “I know it’s silly of me, but this will be the first time Colin and I have been apart since we met last spring.”

“Jimmy told me you were newlyweds.” Julie liked Susan, though at first she’d been a little disappointed when Colin brought home a bride. “You know, I had my eye on Colin before he brought you home, but he never gave me a second glance.”

“I imagine you intimidated him a little,” Susan said, a smile on her pretty face. “He spent a lot of years in New York City. Though he doesn’t say much about it, I get the idea he hung out with glamorous sorts like you. You know he was married for a long time to the daughter of a man who owned the team he played for. I imagine he was gun-shy of jumping into another fast-track woman’s clutches after his marriage died once he quit playing.”

Julie doubted she intimidated anybody, let alone the highly successful, incredibly hot Colin Zanardi, but it was kind of Susan to hint that she did. “He obviously was waiting for you. Anyway, when I had my eye on Colin, I hadn’t met Jimmy.”

“You two make a striking couple. You know, he’s probably the number-one star on the Rebels team now that they’ll be going with a rookie quarterback. He asked me who you were, you know, the day before you two became joined at the hip.” Susan smiled up at Julie, who was about to fill her cup with coffee. “No thanks, I’ve sworn off for a while.”

Julie inhaled the fragrance wafting in the air from her own cup. “Do you mind if I do?” Maybe Susan was in a hurry to get home.

“Not at all. I’d have some myself, but—doctor’s orders.” The expression on Susan’s face couldn’t be called anything but ecstatically happy. “Colin and I just found out yesterday we’re going to have a baby.”

“Congratulations.” As hearing that sort of news always did, it sent a pang of regret through Julie that she hadn’t conceived during her marriage. Of course Lloyd had wanted no part of children and very little to do with her, so her childlessness wasn’t surprising. But now… She was thirty-five. Too old for motherhood, wasn’t she? But wasn’t Susan at least her age? Colin was pushing fifty according to his bio on Wikipedia that she’d looked up a couple years ago when she’d had her eye on him. “You must be thrilled.”

“We are. But the doctor said I’d have to be careful because I just turned forty last month.”

“Will this be your first?” Susan could have grown children somewhere if she’d started out young enough. Not that Julie couldn’t have had a teenager or two by now.

“Yes. Both Colin and I were married before, but neither of us had children. This is a wonderful bonus for us now.”

“I imagine. That must have been why Colin told me before they got on the bus to make sure you take care of yourself while he’s gone.”

Susan sipped her water then laughed. “I’m afraid he’s not going to let me lift a finger the whole nine months, or rather the seven or so it will be before this little one arrives.” She patted her still-flat tummy self-consciously. “The only place I’m used to being bossed around is in the bedroom.”

“I understand all about that.” During the week they’d been together Julie had learned that while Jimmy was all Dom when it came to their sex life, he was a considerate friend and lover in the other activities they shared. Though Susan hadn’t mentioned Rebels’ Roost, Jimmy had said her neighbors enjoyed playing there from time to time. “Jimmy said he’d take me to Rebels’ Roost when he gets back from training camp.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything unless you did. But yes, I’m submissive, too. I guess you are since I know Jimmy is a Dom. I don’t know how much he’s told you, but Rebels’ Roost is not just a dungeon. A few nights a week it caters to vanilla couples, and on Sundays out of season it opens up for picnics for team members and their families.”

Julie nodded. “You’re right. I’ve wondered but never talked to Jimmy about it. Are many professional football players into BDSM play?”

“I’m the wrong person to ask since I’ve only known my Master since April. But there are at least half a dozen Rebels who I’ve seen at Rebels’ Roost on dungeon nights. They all keep it hush-hush, even Colin. Especially him since he’s supposed to be a role model for the players.”

“Don’t worry that Jimmy will spill anything. He didn’t say a word to me until he realized I’m not only submissive but, put it this way, I share a fetish with him that most vanilla people wouldn’t understand.”

“Omigod.” Susan clamped a hand over her mouth. “You don’t mean…you couldn’t mean…not that?”

Susan must have seen or heard about Jimmy’s session with the club submissive—the one he’d told her about. “If it’s what I think you’re thinking, you’d be right.” Julie hoped Susan wouldn’t think she was insane. “The mere idea of having my Master do it to me in a scene is incredibly arousing.”

“I don’t know why I’m shocked. I get off on some pretty serious wax play, myself, although I don’t imagine I’ll get any of that now that I’m pregnant. You’re a model, though. How will you—”

“Have you seen the ads for Emerald Seduction?” Julie glanced over Susan’s head at the blown-up photo on her living room wall. “That’s me, and I had to shave my head for the photo session. I wore wigs in public until my hair grew out enough that it could be styled. Look behind you.”

“Oh. I’ve seen those ads. I’d never have guessed.” Susan’s cheeks were bright red as she took in the nude portrait. “You look stunning.”

“Jimmy thinks so. He says he fell in lust with the woman in the ad before he ever saw me.” Julie started to tell Susan their plan to shave her again for another photo session, this time in a scene at Rebels’ Roost. She decided not to—that the event deserved to be a surprise.

“You’re meant for each other.”

“Yes. Probably not for long. There’s the age difference though he says it doesn’t matter. And then there’s the fact he lives and breathes football and I’m a complete amateur about the game.”

“Come on. You can’t be more than a few years older than Jimmy. Colin’s almost ten years older than I am, and we get along great. My first Master was over twenty years older, and I was just eighteen when we married. We were together until he died.”

“Jimmy just turned twenty-seven last week. I’m thirty-five. Age doesn’t matter nearly as much if the Master is the older one. My ex was sixteen years older than me, and it wasn’t the age difference that split us up. I’ll be fifty—old for a woman—when Jimmy will be in his prime at forty-two.”

Susan shook her head. “I still say it doesn’t matter.”

“You’re right. It doesn’t matter now. I’ll be Jimmy’s slave as long as he wants me. I just can’t kid myself that he’ll keep wanting me when no amount of diet and exercise—not even Botox—can keep my looks from heading downhill.” The timer went off, and Julie excused herself to get the pastries she’d been warming out of the oven. “I’ll be right back.”

As if they’d exhausted their store of confidences, they were quiet while they enjoyed the chocolate croissants. Then Susan excused herself, claiming it was time for her morning rest. “Don’t count on you and Jimmy flaming out any time soon. From the look of him, he’s pretty well committed,” she said as she stepped out into the hallway.

* * * * *

Love. Did Jimmy love her? What she felt for him certainly felt like love—or was it a raging case of lust for the big lug that made her feel warm and tingly every time she let her mind dwell on him? Her mouth watered when she visualized his hard cock, so long and thick and throbbing with desire. She could hardly wait to feel its broad purplish head stretching her mouth and her cunt to their limits. Oh, it felt so damn good, having him inside her, hot flesh to hot flesh.

Before he’d left for training camp, he’d brought a present, ordering her not to unwrap it until after he left. Curious, Julie glanced at the box on her makeup table, gleaming in its gold foil wrapping. Moving it to the bed, she untied the red satin bow, noticing the distinctive devil ornament she recognized as the logo of her favorite sex toy shop off River Street. Smiling, she set the bow aside and unwrapped the package.

No surprises, just a couple of costumes for them to wear in club scenes, some flavored erotic oils, a gross of condoms, and imaginatively colored plugs for all her lonely orifices. She laid the toys out and smiled as she pictured Jimmy making his selections with the two of them in mind.

A cock-shaped gag made of sparkling, red gel-like rubber with straps to hold it to her head, wouldn’t begin to do justice, size-wise, to Jimmy. Julie stared open-mouthed at it and imagined a scene where her young Master would use it to fill one orifice while using one of the other toys and his own monster penis in the others.

She picked up the big, malleable butt plug, rubbing her fingers over its substantial length. This was no beginner toy, no sparkly gel rubber tool not much bigger than Jimmy’s little finger. While a good bit smaller than his cock, it looked all business with its substantial length and girth, and the plain pink finish. But it was malleable, not intended to cause her the pain as a rigid one would. She guessed, since he hadn’t claimed her anally, that he’d chosen it to let her know he wanted her to ready her body and mind for the event he had in mind.

Jimmy had good taste in toys. She’d looked but passed on the molded, vibrating purple dildo with a clit stimulator that would set the little gold ring she wore there to thrumming rhythmically. The toy wouldn’t feel as good as Jimmy’s tongue, for sure, but she imagined it would stave off the worst of her loneliness while he was gone.

As for the costumes, Julie gauged his taste in club gear as minimalist. No little-girl dresses or slutty-looking stripper gear for her. No stiletto heels or fishnet stockings that Lloyd—or rather the Doms he’d wanted to attract—had liked. Looking at a pale-pink, full-body harness, hooded, with detachable blindfold, gag and restraints for wrists and ankles, made her smile. He’d obviously chosen the butter-soft deerskin with her comfort in mind. When she rubbed the hood against her cheek, she enjoyed the distinctive smell, the baby-soft texture.

She looked over the black leather half-mask and body harness he’d chosen for himself—not unlike hers in that it consisted only of a series of leather straps and metal buckles with a built-in leather cock and ball harness. He’ll look, omigod, fearsome. But she wouldn’t be afraid.

Smiling, she put everything but the butt plug back in the box. It was going to be a long three weeks without her lover. Her Master.

Chapter Five

Three weeks later Jimmy came back with the team—tanned and so ripped she wished she dared jump him right there in front of all his teammates when she waited to greet him. He dared, though, picking her up and turning around as he claimed her mouth as if he owned her.

He soon would. Julie’s cunt was already wet, anticipating the ceremony he planned for tomorrow night.

“We’re off this weekend, and Coach Harris excused me from practice for three days. Guess how I plan to spend every minute your photographer isn’t shooting pictures?” he asked as he set her down and practically dragged her to her car.

“Miss me?”

“Oh, yeah. I missed you. Dreamed every night you were in bed with me, sucking my cock, running your soft little fingers all over my bone-tired body. Let’s go home so you can get rid of this for me.” When she looked over at him he was stroking his goatee. “My agent says this has to go, too. They think it makes me look too old.”

Old? Jimmy was almost eight years younger than she. Did the advertisers want it to look as if she was making it with a teenager? “They must want to make me out as a dirty old woman,” she said, chuckling as she drove back toward downtown Savannah.

She’d done little but imagine the scene he’d come up with for his shearing. Would it be at the BDSM club he’d told her about…or maybe in his apartment? Or hers? She already knew he intended to take her hair at Rebels’ Roost. He’d called her his love when he described the scene he had in mind.

* * * * *

When he knocked at her door after stashing his gear in his apartment, she flung it open and rushed into his arms again.

“You got here fast.” It mustn’t have been more than five minutes since he stepped off the elevator at his floor. She’d barely had time to get inside and insert the butt plug in her ass as he’d told her to do. But she was so glad to see him, and she wondered if he could possibly have missed her as much as she’d missed him.

“Surprised, are you?” Laughing, he scooped her up in his arms, dipped his head and claimed her mouth without a second’s hesitation.

She tightened her arms around him. Then she remembered. “I have my lab results for you in case you want us to do this at Rebels’ Roost. They came back today.” He’d presented her with his results before leaving and asked her to get tested, too, so he could take her to there to play. Her heart beat faster at the prospect of club play, something she’d enjoyed with her former Master. She had a feeling that with Jimmy, the play would take on a more thrilling edge.

“Good.” He kissed the tip of her nose then set her down. “I couldn’t wait any longer to be with my precious slave-to-be. I figured my stuff could wait ‘til later to get put away. And we’ll wait to go to the club until your big day tomorrow.” Taking her hand and dragging her along, he stopped and set down a duffle bag on her bedroom floor.

Then he sat at her vanity table and stared at his reflection. She managed to avoid laughing out loud at the sight—the hulking football player dwarfing the small mirrored table and a wrought iron chair with padded seat that looked too dainty to hold his substantial weight. “Take off your robe and come be my naked barber. I’ve been thinking ever since I left how I want to bury my bald head between your pretty legs and eat your cunt until you beg me to let you come.” Taking her hand, he laid it against his throbbing, denim-covered cock.

How had he known she’d fantasized about how he’d look without his long, shaggy hair, goatee and mustache? How incredibly handsome she imagined he’d be with his face clean-shaven. But she’d never said a word to him about how much she’d been fantasizing about how his face and head would feel when they were as smooth as her own would soon be. “Yes, Master.” Kneeling, she took off his shoes and socks and sucked his big toe into her mouth.

He chuckled. “That’s one way I like for you to greet me.”

She paid homage to his other toes then smiled up at him as he stood and took off the rest of his clothes. “I want you naked, too.” He stood while she let her robe slide off her shoulders before settling back on the chair. “God, but you’re beautiful. I missed you.”

When he ran his fingers through his unruly hair, she smiled. “It’s been a couple of years since I let somebody shave my head,” he said, his expression sheepish.

“Why? I think you’ll look good bald. Not that you don’t turn me on now.”

He grinned. “A lot of chicks seem scared of a man who shaves his head, particularly one as big as I am. I imagine I, bald, will intimidate a lot of opponents, too.”

She smiled back at his reflection. “That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it is. The more scared they are, the better.” His eyes twinkled as if he was thinking about three-hundred-pound offensive linemen and opposing quarterbacks quaking in terror when they saw him sans hair.

“I’ve always liked the look of shaved heads for men.”

He looked back at her, his gaze on her own hair that would soon be gone, too. “I figured you did, baby.”

Self-conscious, she ran a finger through her loose, shoulder-length hair. “Do you want me to get rid of the mustache and goatee now, too?”

“Yeah. I want to be as bald as you’re gonna be. Besides, I have to ditch the facial hair before the photo shoot on Monday and Tuesday. I’ll need a little time to get used to it. Think about how you’ll feel, being the center of attention at the club tomorrow while I’m taking this.” He raised his hand, ran his fingers through her hair. “While I shave you, you’ll be sucking my cock, and if you’re a nice slave I may not cuff your hands. Maybe I’ll let you use them to play with my balls. I have the feeling that having a dozen or so club members watching the show will make us both incredibly hot.”

“Ooh, yes, Master.” When she turned on the electric clipper her inner muscles contracted, her asshole biting down on the plug as he found it with one hand and jiggled it.

“I see you found the time to follow my order. Like I mentioned when we were on the way home, I can hardly wait to claim that tight hole.” When she laid the clipper at his forehead and mowed a path back to his crown, he grinned. “Do your worst, just don’t cut me or I may have to ass-fuck you here and now.”

She laughed. “Promises, promises.” She used the clipper first then moved to the shower where she shaved him carefully, first his head and then the mustache and goatee that had partially hidden his full, sensual lips. Then he had her kneel and shave his neatly trimmed crotch until it was as smooth as his gleaming scalp. When she was through, she resisted the urge to suck his tempting erection and blotted away the water with a thirsty bath sheet. “Back to the vanity now for the final touch.”

“Your wish is my command, baby.” Loving the way it felt to caress his amazingly soft skin, she massaged some light, fragrant oil into his scalp and buffed it with a towel until it shone. When she glanced down at his rock-hard erection she saw a drop of lubrication glistening in its eye. “May I take care of another little problem you seem to have, Master?” she asked, angling her head toward his rigid shaft.

“Not until I see how it feels to eat your hot, wet pussy without the beard and goatee in my way. Come here, let’s go to bed.”

He laid her on her back and came down over her, his huge cock head nudging her mouth while he spread her legs and dived between them with his shiny, hairless face. “I’m gonna eat you until you scream for mercy, but you can’t come until I say so.” His hot breath bathed her clit. “Good, your pussy’s already wet for me.”

When he raked his smooth chin over her slit it was all she could do to hold back, follow his orders.

His baby-soft scalp felt strange against her inner thighs, accustomed as she was to feeling his hair tickling her own smooth flesh. “Ooh,” she said, shifting to give him even more access to her tingling pussy.

He blew on her, made her shiver as he pressed his cock down her throat, filled her, made her swallow over and over against his massive organ. He tweaked the ring in her clit with his tongue then plunged it in and out of her vagina. She felt so full, so taken, because while he ate her pussy she felt the plug stretching her ass.

Raising his head, he reached and took out a vibrating dildo from the bag of toys she’d set on the nightstand beside the bed. “Your cunt wants this,” he growled as he inserted it and set it into motion. She felt as though she was going to die, right after she came. But she dared not give in to her body’s urgent demand for release. Had to wait for his permission. “I’m going to fuck your ass now. But first I’m gonna gag your delicious little mouth. I want you to imagine how it would feel to take three cocks at the same time.”

Julie didn’t have to imagine. Her ex-husband often had devised club scenes where three other Doms had fucked her while he’d fucked the ass of one or more of them. She’d wanted it because her only goal back then had been to please him. Now she wanted just as much—no, more—to pleasure Jimmy. “I’m yours to do with as you please, Master,” she said, looking him in the eye then opening her mouth so he could insert the cock-shaped gag. The straps he buckled tightly around her head bit into her hair, tugging at it, reminding her of her submission. Making her cunt throb with wild anticipation.

“Thank you, baby.” He put on a condom then turned her over, doggie style, and positioned her ass for his penetration. She felt a whoosh of air when he slid out the plug, then a cold, wet sensation as he packed lube into her rear. “I’ll go slow. The last thing I want is to hurt my precious slave.”

The broad, slippery head of his sheathed cock probed her asshole, stretching her painfully until he pressed beyond the sphincter muscle and slid a little at a time into her ass. Not my ass—his, she thought, correcting herself as he seated his cock fully inside her rear hole. His smooth, heavy balls bounced against her cunt lips as he moved slowly and carefully.

Pressure built in her belly, spreading quickly through her nerves. She bit down on the gag while her cunt began to spasm around the vibrating dildo. It felt…incredible, milking him with her sphincter muscle until he groaned and tunneled his fingers through the hair at her nape.

“Oh, yeah. I’ll never leave you again for this long,” he muttered as his cock jerked inside her. She felt him coming in long, hard spurts even though he had on a condom, and the sensations set off another wave of orgasms that took over her body, made her mindless. A long time later she felt him pull out of her ass and replace the plug. Then he got up, strode into the bathroom and came back with a wet washcloth and a towel.

“Sleep, baby. We’re gonna need all our energy tomorrow. Dream about wearing my collar, becoming my very precious slave.”

* * * * *

Jimmy drove carefully on the narrow, two-lane road the following afternoon. Julie sat beside him, her head lowered as a slave’s should be. She’d acceded to his wishes and taken off her wisp-of-lace panties that she’d worn under her long wrap skirt, and to his request that she tie up her hair and put on the wig she’d wear home from the club later that night.

He loved her obedience. With or without her hair, with or without the shiny black, shoulder-length wig, she was gorgeous, a magnet for other men’s frank looks of admiration. Of lust that wasn’t going to do them any good because she was his. He sort of liked realizing he was the only guy who knew that her hair would soon be gone, sacrificed tonight for his sexual pleasure. And her own.

He took off his ball cap and rubbed a hand over his own freshly shaved head. It felt damn good. He did feel a little naked, though, without the mustache and goatee he’d worn for a few years, since his former teammates had unmercifully teased him as a rookie about his baby face.

Maybe he’d grow his own hair out, at least the mustache and goatee. He’d have to shave twice a day if he wanted to keep his chin and neck smooth. But if he had his way, Julie wouldn’t grow her hair back, at least not for long. It gave him—and her, he was sure—too much of a sexual thrill to know she was completely naked, totally hairless. But then he was itching to shave her himself, in scenes like the one he planned for tonight where he’d shear off her luxuriant black hair and shave her, revealing her gorgeous, perfect alabaster scalp. To do that, he’d have to let her grow her hair out between shavings. As much as it turned him on to imagine shaving her every day while she sucked his cock, he was also looking forward to running his fingers through the soft, downy growth, gauging whether or not she needed another shave. Even to having her grow her hair out to where it brushed her shoulders and then taking it from her and wrapping the silky strands around his cock.

He imagined different scenarios. Her on her knees sucking his cock while he sectioned her hair and clipped off the strands one by one. Her bound and gagged and pilloried while he fucked her sopping cunt and another sub shaved her for his pleasure. Them being shaved together by a couple of club submissives while…

He’d think more about that later. Meanwhile, two yards of diamonds on a thin gold chain that he’d bought last week felt warm in the pocket of his jeans. He imagined how they’d look, strung through chain loops attached to the gold collar he had in his duffle bag, and those tiny rings in her nipples and clit. That thought sent blood slamming into his cock. He willed it into submission. As much as he wanted to fuck Julie until neither of them could walk, he intended for them to get to know each other, too, without the heat of desire clouding their brains. As he turned off the highway onto the dirt road rutted by traffic from heavy construction equipment, he set her hand firmly onto her own slender thigh. “Later, baby.”

“Where are we going, Master?” She hadn’t said much so far, but now she looked around, saw they were bouncing along on the rutted one-lane driveway that paralleled the Intracoastal Waterway and offered occasional views of blue, foaming ocean through a curtain of pine trees, brambles and sea oats.

He lowered the windows, inhaled fresh, slightly salty air mingling with the smell of pine trees and musty soil. The smell of home. “My place.”

“You mean the house you’re having built?” She sounded confused.

He laughed. “Yes. I want to show it to you, see if you think you’ll like living there. I’ve been imagining you out on the deck, stark naked, working on your tan while I rub sunscreen on every inch of your body. Especially here…and here.” Reaching across the console, he tweaked her pussy and then tunneled his fingers behind the hair of her wig, seeking the sweet spot just above her hairline. “Can’t have all my personal playgrounds getting sunburned.”

She leaned her head against his hand then turned and kissed his palm. “That would never do. Could I rub some of that suntan lotion all over you, too?”

“You mean here?” He took her hand, brushed it over his head then laid it over his crotch. “See what it does to me, just thinking about touching you, claiming every inch of your luscious body?”

“I see. And I love having your huge, hard cock inside me. Everywhere.”

That last word, so fucking sexy sounding when she said it, almost made him say the hell with talking and on to taking her right here on the front seat of the Navigator. He pulled up in front of his almost-finished house and started to reach for her. When a faint, whining sound drew his attention to the ground below an unfinished deck, he stopped in midair and looked for the source of the sound.

“Oh, no. Can we help her?” Julie obviously spotted the same thing that drew his attention, and she was out the door and headed toward a scruffy-looking mutt huddled at the corner of the deck closest to a steel support beam.

“Careful, baby, it may bite.” From the sound of its plaintive cries he guessed the dog must be in a lot of pain, and he worried that it might attack out of fear. Jimmy opened the door and slid out, moving fast to get in front of Julie but trying not to startle the dog with any sudden movement. He felt Julie right behind him before he saw her out of the corner of his eye.

“Look. It’s hurt.”

Jimmy saw damp blood matting the dog’s hip. “I see.” He spoke softly, trying to reassure it as he moved closer. “It’s okay, we just want to help you.”

“Do you think somebody hit it with a car?” She spoke softly and moved slowly, her gaze fixed on the muddy pooch that was feebly trying to lift its head. When the dog looked up at them, pain evident in its dull, brown eyes, Julie knelt before he could stop her. “It’s okay, we’re not going to hurt you.”

Jimmy held his breath until he was confident the dog wasn’t about to hurt Julie. Then he moved in, got a good look at the wound and pulled out his cell phone. “Our friend here needs a vet, fast.”

* * * * *

Julie hadn’t had a dog since she was a kid, but she loved them. From the seriousness in Jimmy’s tone when he spoke to a vet and the care with which he lifted the dog into the back of his SUV, she gathered he was an animal lover, too. Almost as though the dog, whom he decided to call Missy, was a beloved family member, they waited in the vet’s waiting room while he set her broken hind leg and checked her for internal injuries.

“What kind of dog do you think she is?”

Jimmy shrugged. “Part beagle, maybe. Or Jack Russell terrier. I’m not sure. I am going to take her, though, if she pulls through. Somebody must have dumped her on the road before she got hit by a car. I figure since she found my place, she decided it ought to be her home.”

“I won’t tell a soul, but for a big, bad football player you’re a real softie.” She smiled at him, certain not just any guy would have scrapped his plans for the day to help an animal, much less plan to give the dog a home. “I’m glad. I’m an animal lover, too.”

An hour or so later, when the vet came out, Jimmy stood. “How is she?”

“She should be fine other than a limp that may or may not go away. I put in two pins that will need to come out in about three weeks. If you don’t mind, I’d like to keep her here a couple of days to be sure there are no internal injuries that haven’t shown up. Somebody dumped her out of a moving car, looks like.”

Poor Missy. From the way Jimmy looked, he’d like to strangle whoever had treated a helpless animal like that. “Yeah. You keep her as long as you need to. And do what needs doing. Don’t skimp with her. I’ll take care of your bill.”

When they shook hands, Julie got up. “Can we see her?”

“Tomorrow. If you two are going to keep her, you should visit her while she’s here, give her the chance to get to know you. You know, the world needs a few more good Samaritans in it.”

Obviously the vet thought they were a couple. Julie felt as if they were, at least during this minor crisis. She smiled up at Jimmy.

“We’ll be by early tomorrow to see Missy.” He included her, which gave her a warm fuzzy feeling.

Chapter Six

“We’ll go see the house tomorrow, baby. I’m sorry we had to change our plans for a lazy day before the big night, but it’s getting to be time now for us to head to the Rebels’ Roost. We can change there, and you can shave me again before our scene—at least my face. I can feel the five o’clock shadow on my chin, already.”

She brushed her fingers across his scalp and over his chin and throat as he drove back toward the ocean. “Mmmm. I see another reason you usually wear the goatee and mustache.”

Excitement coursed through Julie. He’d told her they would dress each other in the body harnesses Jimmy had bought and put their clothes on over them. But now they’d have to do it at the dungeon she could barely wait to see. Between Jimmy and Susan, they’d piqued her curiosity about a dungeon where only the interested members of the Rebels’ extended family were welcome.

“Your safe word will be ‘emerald’,” he told her. “This is a very private dungeon. Every member is connected with the Rebels in one way or another, and all of us get tested every sixty days, so nobody needs to worry about disease. Before we get there I need to tell you a few teammates are…like your ex. Some will be there tonight. They’ll have Dommes with them. The three in our group—the Domme and her sub husband and the other male in their threesome—may be there tonight, or they may not. They aren’t out of the closet, though. It wouldn’t go over at all if they were, because pro football’s full of all kinds but especially a bunch of macho homophobes. You may see Coach Zanardi and Susan, too. As for other Rebels, you probably won’t know them since you don’t strike me as exactly the world’s most ardent football fan.”

“I’ve never even seen a pro football game. But I was a cheerleader in high school. Does that count?”

“Yeah. You’ll see our first home exhibition game next weekend, the first of many. I want my precious slave in the stands whenever I’m playing. I’ll bring you out here again on Tuesday or Thursday and introduce you to the vanilla guys. But tonight everybody here will share our lifestyle.

“Baby, I’ve never been so crazy about a woman before. Ever. Come over here so I can pet you while I drive.” When she snuggled up next to him he kissed her forehead then stroked her bare shoulder and arm. “I’m gonna collar you tonight. What do you think of that?”

She’d thought he might, from little hints he’d dropped since he got back from training camp. “I like it. I love the idea of you being my Master, me being your sex slave. I trust you’ll take very good care of me.” Like a friendly kitten, she rubbed her cheek against his forearm.

“You can count on that. Here’s the turnoff,” he said, clicking the right turn signal and turning off onto a narrow crushed-shell road that led to Rebels’ Roost.

* * * * *

Was she ready? Every cell in her body thrummed with anticipation. Her cunt twitched and her heart beat double-time as she followed Jimmy into the dark-paneled lodge. From what she could see, there was a large public room with all sorts of dungeon equipment, even a spiderweb, a device she’d only seen once before, when her ex-husband had taken her to a famous dungeon in New York City. Centered in the room was the fucking chair she imagined Jimmy might use to restrain her for the scene he’d described.

Beneath the long wrap dress Jimmy had picked out for her to wear, she was naked, as were most of the submissives she noticed in the public room. “Nobody is masked,” she commented, a little surprised to recognize the Rebels’ new quarterback and both starting tight ends from having seen them do interviews on TV this week.

Jimmy laughed. “What happens here stays here, just like in Vegas. Subs don’t wear clothes here, in case you didn’t notice. Most of the women are like you—personal slaves of members. We have three or four club subs and one club Dom. Donna’s one of the club subs. She’ll put away your dress.”

“All right.” Wondering if her arousal showed, Julie unwrapped her dress and dropped it in the striking woman’s outstretched arms. “Thank you.” When she looked at Donna’s shaggy, grown-out buzz cut she realized this must be the sub Jimmy had clipper-shaved some months ago.

The sub lowered her gaze. “If your Master permits, I will prepare you for his pleasure.”

When she reached to take Julie’s arm, Jimmy stopped her. “That’s all right, Donna. I will prepare her myself.”

* * * * *

Nobody could see Jimmy decked out in that leather harness and not recognize him as a sexual Dominant. Julie’s mouth watered when she saw his cock rearing up against his flat belly, his balls tight against it. Though a leather band encircled his genitals, it showcased rather than confined his sex. With his cleanly shaved head and face, he looked fierce—fearsome to anyone who hadn’t seen him suffering with a hurt pup a few hours earlier.

Her own pink harness lifted her breasts and crossed her belly, splitting her ass cheeks and opening her for her master’s inspection. “God, you’re an angel. And you’re mine. All mine,” he said as he adjusted the harness around her thighs to give him easy access to her cunt. “Come with me.”

Her gaze lowered as a slave’s should be, Julie followed Jimmy into the main dungeon where he motioned to a circular area in the center where the only equipment seemed to be a small, wooden table draped with black cloth that covered its top, concealing…

“The instruments of your enslavement, my pet.”

Was it her imagination or had his voice taken on a more authoritative tone? And he’d never called her his pet before. Her exposed skin felt hot, prickly—anticipation or fear or a little of both—as they entered the dungeon. A white spotlight seemed to follow them as they passed the empty spiderweb.

They weren’t alone. Colored lights played over naked subs and masked Doms, briefly highlighting a big, beautiful Domme in corset and stilettos as she stood over a buff white guy laid out on a fucking table, his legs spread wide. When she unlocked his cock restraint and stood back, whip in hand, she inspected his thick, securely padlocked black collar and the two infibulation rings that now hung free from the end of his cock and the flesh just behind his scrotum. Then she began wielding the crop over his thighs, his genitals, his ridged abs.

Sensuous sounds of hard rock music punctuated the orders of Doms, the moans and cries of their slaves. Farther along the dungeon wall a collared male sub licked a Domme’s cunt while a masked Dom held his leash and fucked his ass.

Julie sensed more eyes on her as they reached the center of the room. Curious eyes. The scents and sounds of arousal and fucking surrounded them. She’d missed the highly charged atmosphere of the dungeon, the voyeur’s appreciation for the sort of stimulation that came only from public submission and, she assumed, public acts of Domination.

“If you want to be my slave, kneel.” Jimmy sat on the straight chair someone put in his hand when they reached the red-carpeted circle and the table. “And look at me.”

At that moment she wanted nothing more, so she went to her knees between his rock-hard thighs and tilted her head back so she met his glittering gaze. Oh, yes, she wanted to belong to him—body and soul. But she knew more than to speak before he granted her permission.

He spoke softly, his voice deep and serious as he promised to care for her, protect her, treat her as his most precious possession. In return he expected her to give him control over her body and obedience to his reasonable orders. “Do you want this?”

No doubt existed in Julie’s mind. “Yes, Master.”

“What will you give me as proof?”

She bowed her head. “My hair, Master, if you will have it.”

“I will.”

Anticipation sluiced through Julie’s veins as the sub named Donna came forward and folded back the cover from the table. She felt rather than saw the woman place a pair of scissors in Jimmy’s hand then step back outside the circle. Suddenly warm, Julie glanced around, saw at least a dozen pairs of feet surrounding them. Others were watching.

“Suck my cock, pet.”

Oh, yes. She bent and took his cock in her mouth. Her nipples tingled as they brushed the insides of his rock-hard thighs. Submission before witnesses. Her cunt contracted and moisture wet her labia when he made the first cut. Her hair tickled her back as it fell.

“I love you, baby.” His honeyed voice bathed her head in sensation as he snipped away her hair. Nothing like the barber’s businesslike work, this was a sensual treat. With each snip came a caress, an incredible feeling of submission to the man she loved.

Yes, she loved her Master, now and for as long as he wanted her. She wanted to please him. She’d never felt so adored, so taken as when he laid the scissors down and ran his fingers through the short tufts of hair that remained.

She saw him hold out one hand for the electric clipper Donna offered. The sound of its motor whirring made her cunt clench and release more hot, slippery lubricant to trickle down her legs. The buzzing of the clipper on her scalp had her desperately sucking him, wanting him to come. Wanting to come, herself.

He wasn’t unaffected. His cock swelled, growing impossibly larger against her throat. She tasted the salty lubrication escape, and his harsh groan let her know he was close. As close as she was.

Oh God, he was killing her with every slow-motion pass of the vibrating clippers on her scalp. She squirmed, blew out her breath around his throbbing flesh. The tiny clippings of her hair clung to both of them.

The clipper stopped buzzing and he ran a big, gentle hand over her head. “Feels like fine sandpaper, pet. Damn, I can’t stand it. Gotta come.” When he groaned and trembled, she realized the harness buckled around his scrotum and the base of his cock had to be hurting him terribly. “Let me loose.”

She raised her head enough to see the cock ring and remove it then took him back in her mouth in time to taste the first hot spurts of semen. “Oh God yeah.” He pulled away and came on her stubbled scalp, spurt after spurt of creamy, salty ejaculate that slid over her.

“Master, may I come?” She felt it low in her belly, in her breasts. In every cell of her body. But he controlled her pleasure. “Please.”

“Come, my beautiful slave.” With gentle hands he massaged his slick semen into her nearly bare head, scooped it from her cheeks and ears. It felt incredible, almost as good as the release that left her limp and helpless.

It could have been minutes or hours when she felt her master clamp a slender collar around her neck. It closed with a blessed, final click as he said one welcome word, “Forever.” Gently he threaded the long, diamond-studded chain through the rings in her nipples and clit and fastened it through the one dangling from his collar. “A pretty leash for my beautiful slave,” he said, his tone deep, his dark eyes focused on her face.

When her head had been shaved before, she’d gotten sensual pleasure. But not like this. Jimmy borrowed the big Domme’s slave and ordered him to shave Julie’s head. Jimmy must be afraid he’d cut her. While the slave wielded the razor, her Master knelt behind her and fucked her.

Gently. Possessively. He played with her nipple rings. “Come now,” he ordered her once the shaving was done, as he came again, his heat scalding her. It felt…incredibly good. Clamping down on his spasming cock, she came and came…and came.

* * * * *

On Monday they did the photo shoot. Pissed at first to have to let a male photographer see his slave naked, Jimmy felt better when he realized, if anything, he’d attract more of the guy’s attention than Julie would.

“You have a hot, hot body.” That had been the photographer’s first utterance when they came out of the dressing alcove, even more naked than the days they were born, except for the makeup that made him feel like a weirdo.

Jimmy shot him a killing look, but his dismay was mixed with relief that nobody but him would be ogling his Julie. “Let’s get on with it,” he said, his tone pretty damn close to a snarl.

“How’re you doing?” Julie asked once they’d been posing for an hour or more.

“Okay. This gig’s not half bad, compared with standing around in football pants, pushing shampoo and conditioner. I never got to lie around all morning with a gorgeous chick before, and get paid for doing it to boot.”

“I want that look a little more intense,” the camera guy ordered. “Look like you’ve got a major hard-on for the chick, macho-man.”

Jimmy looked down at Julie, whispered, “And he thinks I don’t?”

“Hush.” But she broke out in laughter as the camera rolled. “Sorry about that, Ted.”

They went on for four more hours before Ted, the director, and the gay photographer finished the session. “We got some good shots. Kidding aside, you two have chemistry that’s gonna jump right off the pages of those magazines. The company may want us to shoot some video for TV ads. They’ll know within six months, they say. They think they’re saving money, but it would have been cheaper to do the stills and video all in one shot, even if they decide against the TV spots.”

Ted looked at Julie and smiled. “You willing to go naked again, Miss Julie?”

She looked up at Jimmy. “Up to you, boss.”

Was she kidding? “Get naked with you, baby? Any day.”

Hell, they had a fetish they could explain away in vanilla company if they ever needed to!

Chapter Seven

Two months later

“I’m what?” Julie stared at the doctor she’d gone to because of some vague stomach disturbances she’d been having the past few weeks.

“Pregnant. P-r-e-g-n-a-n-t. As in, with child.”

Alison Drake, M.D. was very young and a smart-mouth to boot. Not as reassuring as Julie’s regular doc, for certain. “You’re sure?”

“Positive. Do I refer you to the OB guy or the Women’s Center?”

She was pushing thirty-six. She had a loving Master—at least for now—but they’d never talked about the possibility of…this. And kids didn’t necessarily go real well with the BDSM lifestyle they both enjoyed. Still…

“Well?”

“I-I’ll have to think about it.” Talk to Jimmy. He has a right to know, doesn’t he?

Dr. Drake shrugged. “I’ll refer you to the OB, then. If you’re not going to abort it right away, you’ll need prenatal care. After all, you’re getting old to be having a first pregnancy.”

Did she have to say that? Julie knew every year of her age. But she wasn’t on the brink of senility as this woman seemed to think. “Okay. I’ll want…hold on, let me call my friend and find out her obstetrician’s name.” She pulled out her phone and speed-dialed Susan.

She got the doctor’s name, and an invitation to drop by Susan’s place for lunch that sounded a lot like a royal command. “Dr. Mark Cohen,” she told Dr. Drake.

“That’s a good idea. He specializes in high-risk pregnancies.”

Was she high risk? “Am I?”

The doctor had an annoying habit of shrugging, Julie decided when she prefaced another statement with the gesture. “Not that I know of. But at your age…”

Enough! Julie stood and held out her hand for the referral. “Thank you.” Then she made a beeline past the front desk and out the door.

* * * * *

She’d bounced back and forth, trying to decide between going to Susan’s or seeing if she could get hold of Jimmy while he was at practice—the last one before the Rebels’ game with the Maulers who apparently were archrivals who’d beaten them in the Super Bowl last winter. This wasn’t something she wanted to tell him during a hurried phone call while he was surrounded by other coaches and players. Susan won hands-down, so here she was at her friend’s front door, waiting.

“Congratulations! You’ve gotta be thrilled.” Susan was beaming, ear to ear, her pretty face glowing with apparent good health. “Come on in,” she said in her endearing west-Texas drawl. “I fixed us some soup and salad. And milk. Good stuff for expectant moms.”

Julie smiled. She couldn’t fault her friend’s enthusiasm. Now five months along with what she and Colin called their miracle pregnancy, she thought the condition was the greatest thing on earth. Julie, on the other hand, hated milk and had a sinking feeling her baby daddy wasn’t going to be delighted about impending fatherhood—at least not with her, not now.

But she was. If not delighted, then at least protective as hell of the little life growing inside her. She hadn’t known until this moment, but she was certain now. She was going to have this baby. If she lost the Master she loved, so be it.

“I’ll pass on the milk. I guess I’ll have to get my calcium from cheese and yogurt. And broccoli. I hear it’s loaded with calcium, which is weird since calcium’s white and broccoli’s dark green.” Julie realized she was babbling when Susan shot her a curious look. “Sorry, I must be a little crazy right now,” she said apologetically as she sat at the table in front of a steaming bowl of clam chowder.

“Don’t apologize. When I found out, I spent the four hours before Colin got home that day, bouncing between joy and absolute fear. You’ll be fine once you tell Jimmy and he acts like you hung the moon and he’s the only man on earth who’s managed to father a child.”

“I hope so.” Julie didn’t feel like enumerating her fears or reminding her friend that their situations were quite different. They both wore pretty gold chokers that said “slave” to anybody in the lifestyle. But Susan also wore her master’s wedding band, along with a flashy diamond engagement ring that went with it. She’d mentioned several times how Colin and she had decided from the first to do their best to have a baby, or to adopt if she failed to conceive.

Julie tried to stay calm, pretend interest in Susan’s chatter about the supposed joys of pregnancy including some details Julie would have rather waited to learn about on her own. Forcing a smile, she ate a few spoonfuls of the soup and a few bites of the fresh-fruit salad Susan had fixed. “I’m afraid I’m not very good company today. I think I’ll go home and wait for Jimmy to finish with practice.”

“Don’t worry, it will all be fine,” Susan said as she walked Julie to the door.

* * * * *

To keep from thinking too much, Julie undressed, set her wig on its stand and shrugged into a terry robe. On the deck, she stripped and climbed in the Jacuzzi tub in hope that the swirling water would ease her tension.

It didn’t. In an hour she’d turned herself into a prune but her temples still throbbed. She didn’t want to think, but she had to. Idly, she scratched Missy’s sleek neck until Jimmy called to say he’d be late.

“Great. More time to fret,” she told the dog after hanging up the phone. Missy just looked at her, a puzzled doggy look on her face.

By the time Jimmy got home—an hour later than usual—Julie was in a fine funk. Every minute she sat on the deck of his new house where they’d lived together for the past six weeks, she visualized his possible reactions—all bad. Maybe she should just leave, go somewhere and have the baby alone.

But no. She couldn’t do that. Even though she figured he might send her away, she couldn’t leave him to wonder what he’d done. What she’d done that made her leave him without any explanation.

She patted the dog they’d found together, and she remembered how he genuinely loved the pooch. The pins had been removed from her hind leg last week. Maybe…

Maybe he’d want his baby, too, even if it was conceived by accident. She got up and went inside as she heard him get out of his SUV and close the door.

He deserves to know, whether he wants to or not.

As he climbed the stairs to the great room overlooking the water, she tried to stop trembling. Her stomach rolled, more nerves than the all-day morning sickness that had sent her to the doctor.

A beer. He’ll want one. After I tell him, he’ll probably want a six-pack. Going to the bar, she got a beer for him and a bottled water for herself. With any kind of luck it wouldn’t send her racing for the bathroom.

“Hey, baby, sorry I’m late. Coach Harris wanted to meet with the linemen after practice.” Bending, he kissed her hard, then ran his fingers through the short regrowth of hair on her head that he’d so far resisted shaving again, though he kept his own head clean-shaven for her pleasure—and his. He grinned, amazed at how, in such a short time, she’d become the most important part of his life. Her being here had changed his bachelor pad into a home he loved coming home to.

She hugged him the way she always did, but he sensed from the stiff way she held her body that something was bothering her. “Still got a tummy ache?” he asked when he noticed she was drinking water instead of her usual beer or ginger ale.

“A little.” It bothered him that she didn’t look him in the eye but kept her gaze lowered the way she did when they were playing BDSM games at the club.

She’d mentioned this morning that she might go to the doctor. Jimmy fought down the panicky feeling that came over him. “Did you go to the doctor?” he asked as casually as he could manage.

“Yes.”

“Well? What did he say?” Jimmy didn’t like the icy fear that was creeping through his veins.

“She. I saw a female doctor. Don’t worry, I’m not going to die right away or anything.” Julie sat on a corner of the big sectional sofa and sipped her water. Jimmy didn’t feel very reassured by her answer, voiced in a monotone totally unlike his vivacious slave.

Fuck, he was going to get to the bottom of this. “Stand up. Look at me. Quit beating around the bush and tell me exactly what she said. Do it now.”

“Master—”

“Don’t stall. You’re scaring the shit out of me and I don’t like it. If you don’t have anything serious, then you shouldn’t mind telling me about it.” His hands itched to grab her by the shoulders and shake whatever she knew and he didn’t out of her, but his heart wouldn’t let him.

“I’m sorry, Master. I’m— I’m pregnant.”

He felt like he’d been hit by an eighteen-wheeler. It was obvious she felt the same, from the frightened look on her gorgeous face.

“A kid?” Once in a while he’d thought about having a family. But not lately. Julie occupied all his thoughts the way no other woman ever had—even Belinda. He sat beside her, gathered her up against his chest. “Are you gonna be okay?”

Julie sniffed. “I think so. The doctor seemed to think I’m pretty healthy for somebody of my advanced years, but she referred me to the high-risk OB Susan goes to. I have an appointment next week.”

So she wasn’t thinking of getting rid of it. He wouldn’t want her to, he realized when he pictured her growing round with his baby. Their baby.

“I bet we did it our first night at the club,” he said, recalling clearly that he’d taken her then without protection. Then and several other times since. He’d gotten pretty fond of riding bareback without giving too much thought to the natural consequences. “Are you happy, baby?”

When she looked up at him, he saw tears glistening in her eyes. “If you are. It took me less than an hour to realize I couldn’t…” She hesitated. “Terminate it.”

“I wouldn’t want you to, as long as it’s safe for you.” He’d heard pregnancies after the mom was thirty-five could be risky, but damn it, he wanted their child, maybe more than just this one. He wanted Julie not just for sexual games but for life.

“It’s safe. I’m healthy. Besides, I’m thirty-five, not forty-five. The only problem I’m likely to have is this twenty-four-hour morning sickness, and that’s supposed to go away pretty soon now.” She paused, brought his hand to her lips and kissed each finger. “I don’t want you to feel obligated. If you want me to leave—”

“Don’t even think about it. I want you and our kid, not just now but always.” He said it without thinking but realized he meant every word. “I love you both. How soon can we get married?”

Now her tears were coming like a flood as she clung to him. “I love you, too, Master mine, more than you know. But sometime you’re going to regret having a wife eight years older than you, when I get wrinkled and you’re still so hot.”

“Bull. We’re getting married. No kid of mine’s gonna be called a bastard. And if you don’t think I’ll still want you when we’re both doddering around the nursing home, you’re dead wrong. Quit bawling and put on your clothes, we’re going to Rebels’ Roost.”

This time her smile was genuine. She was so gorgeous and she was his. All his. He figured their play would tone down some in the coming months, and tonight would be a first step. Their first audition for family life.

* * * * *

Tonight Julie thought the stars shone extra-bright in a late October sky as she danced with her Master to the sensual sounds of a string quartet. Jimmy had never brought her to the Rebels’ Roost before on couples’ night, and it had an altogether different feel about it than it did on dungeon nights. A vanilla feel that felt a lot like commitment.

Tomorrow they’d get a license and buy the rings—it amazed Julie that her macho Master wanted to wear one, too—and she’d invite a few close friends on the team to witness a simple wedding on the shore in front of their house. They’d make traditional vows that would be no more or less meaningful than the ones they’d made two months earlier when Jimmy had become her Master, she his obedient slave.

Now she basked in her Master’s attention, a vanilla night for two lovers brought together by a shared fetish, bound forever by something stronger. Bound by love.

“Let’s go home, baby. This time I’m gonna shave you one more time before our baby is born. No scene. Just the two of us. I figure you’ll want to wear your own hair when you meet the little guy or girl.”

* * * * *

All the way home Jimmy fondled her damp cunt, inhaling the scent of his woman. His sex slave, his lover. Soon she’d give him a child, but even sooner she’d become his wife. Forever. His cock swelled against his zipper when he thought of taking her, renewing the vows they had made when he’d taken her hair and clamped his collar around her slender neck.

While they watched Missy take care of her business, he took off her wig and ran his fingers through the very short stubble that she soon would give him.

When they went back inside, he set the wig on its stand and undressed her gently, tenderly and led her to the master bath. He clippered her head while she sat at the vanity table, pausing often to play with her nipples, which already seemed swollen and extra-sensitive. When he bent to them, she ran her tongue sensuously over the back of his bald head. Just looking at her, touching her, had him aching and swollen, but he held off, stroking her beautiful body while she writhed in ecstasy.

He loved touching her, feeling the bristly remnants of her hair disappear as he lathered and shaved her. God, but she felt good, too good. When he licked and sucked the supersensitive spots she’d taught him about by doing the same to his own smooth scalp, she moaned with a pleasure so intense that he nearly came as he watched the rapturous expressions play on her gorgeous face.

“Fuck me, please.” Ever submissive, she wouldn’t push.

He loved that, loved that she so generously gave him her love. Very gently he lifted her and carried her to their bed. “My pleasure.” He found her wet heat, let it take him on a slow, sensuous journey as he fondled her soft, bare scalp. “Come now, baby. Come for me.”

“Yes. Omigod, I love the way you love me.”

“Me too, baby.” Groaning, he managed to enjoy the feel of her cunt clenching his cock for mere seconds before he let go.

Afterward he held her, his cock still half-hard and buried in the wet heat of her cunt. She stirred, her legs going slack at his waist. “Thank you for loving me.”

“I do. I figure my cock has found a forever home.”

About the Author

Ann Jacobs is a sucker for lusty Alpha heroes and happy endings, which makes Ellora’s Cave an ideal publisher for her work. Romantica®, to her, is the perfect combination of sex, sensuality, deep emotional involvement and lifelong commitment—the elusive fantasy women often dream about but seldom achieve.

First published in 1996, Jacobs has sold over forty books and novellas, some of which have earned awards including the Passionate Plume (best novella, 2006), the Desert Rose (best hot and spicy romance, 2004) and More Than Magic (best erotic romance, 2004). She has been a double finalist in separate categories of the EPPIES and From the Heart RWA Chapter’s contest. Three of her books have been translated and sold in several European countries.

A CPA and former hospital financial manager, Jacobs now writes full-time, with the help of Mr. Blue, the family cat who sometimes likes to perch on the back of her desk chair and lend his sage advice. He sometimes even contributes a few random letters when he decides he wants to try out the keyboard. She loves to hear from readers, and to put faces with names at signings and conventions.

Ann welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email address on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.

Tell Us What You Think

We appreciate hearing reader opinions about our books. You can email us at Comments@EllorasCave.com.

Also by Ann Jacobs

A Gift of Gold

A Mutual Favor

Another Love

Awakenings

Black Gold: Dallas Heat

Black Gold: Entrapped

Black Gold: Firestorm

Black Gold: Forever Enslaved

Black Gold: Love Slave

Club Rio Brava 1: Loving Control

Club Rio Brava 2: Switching Control

Club Rio Brava 3: Unexpected Control

Club Rio Brava 4: Learning Control

Colors of Love

Colors of Magic

Commitment

D’Argent Honor 1: Vampire Justice

D’Argent Honor 2: Eternally His

D’Argent Honor 3: Eternal Surrender

D’Argent Honor 4: Eternal Victory

D’Argent Honor: Eternal Triangle

Dark Side of the Moon

Gates of Hell

Gridiron Lovers 1: Naked Bootleg

Gridiron Lovers 2: Forward Pass

Gridiron Lovers 3: Hot in the Clutch

Gridiron Lovers 4: Coach Me

Gridiron Lovers: Hot for the Reunion

Haunted

He Calls Her Jasmine

Heart of the West 1: Roped

Heart of the West 2: Hitched

Heart of the West 3: Lassoed

Her Very Special Robot

Illusions

Lawyers in Love: Bittersweet Homecoming

Lawyers in Love: Eye of the Storm

Lawyers in Love: Gettin’ It On

Lawyers in Love: In His Own Defense

Lawyers in Love: Mastered

Out of Bounds

Tip of the Iceberg

Topaz Dream

Wrong Place, Wrong Time?

Zayed’s Gift

Discover for yourself why readers can’t get enough of the multiple award-winning publisher Ellora’s Cave. Whether you prefer e-books or paperbacks, be sure to visit EC on the web at www.ellorascave.com for an erotic reading experience that will leave you breathless.

www.ellorascave.com