Liam was quiet for a moment, the only sound the hum of the engine and the wet slush of the tires on the road. “My brother is focused on how much control he has over someone else. That makes him a top, not a Dom.”
His answer surprised her, going far deeper than anything she’d ever read. “So what’s a Dom, then?”
“A Dom…” He looked thoughtful, his lower lip pulled between his teeth, eyes on the road. “A Dom measures how much control he has over himself, not how much control he can exert over a submissive.”
“Oh.” She blinked at his response. For some reason, it made her feel warm all over. In fact, the heater was now making her rather… hot.
“Too complicated?” Liam half-smiled as she took her feet off the dash, her socks dry now, slipping them into her clogs. “I guess what I’m saying is that tops act. Dominants simply… are.”
She turned more toward him, her knee brushing against his hand on the gearshift. “So you’re a Dom?”
“Yes.”
“Do you…” She swallowed, wondering how to approach the subject. What if he said no? “I mean… are you open to new clients?”
“Sorry.” Liam shook his head, giving her jean-clad knee a gentle let-down squeeze. “I’m very particular.”
Her heart lurched in her chest. She couldn’t take no for an answer. She just couldn’t.
“So…? What…? I have to submit an application? Go through an interview process?”
“No.” He shook his head slowly, sadly.
“But-”
His hand moved to the gearshift, leaving her feeling cold again. “I’m afraid it’s invitation only.”
“And I’m not invited?” She turned toward the door, folding her arms across her chest, trying not to take what he said personally and failing, miserably. Patrick had been more than willing to talk to her, to set her at ease, to educate her and offer to set a scene with her.
This man-he was stubborn. Arrogant. And what did he know anyway?
“Why do you want to be a submissive?”
She sniffed. “I don’t.”
“No?” He looked at her, confused.
“I don’t want to be a submissive.” Katie swallowed, turning her face toward the window, feeling tears welling up. Oh god, not again. Hadn’t she’d cried enough in front of this awful man? “I am a submissive.”
They were quiet, the silence stretching as the Maserati covered the snow-covered road like a cat, purring low to the ground. They were getting closer to her home now and she wanted to give him a real answer, something that might change his mind, make him understand how important it was, how desperate she was.
So she told him about Thomas Dunn and “The Erotic Bondage Handbook.” And once she began, she couldn’t stop. She told him about all the other books and the web sites and how she’d found Patrick. And then she told him about losing her father when she was ten, to cancer, watching the strongest man she’d ever known fade away until he finally disappeared. She talked about her mother’s aimless wandering, living in an RV and being homeschooled as a teen, about boys who thought she was too shy to bother, about a chaotic world filled with pain and insanity and constant choices, about never knowing which one was the Lady or the Tiger.
She talked about becoming a librarian, about finding routine and order and, finally, quiet. She talked to him while tears ran down her face and soaked her coat and she didn’t care, she had to make him understand that this thing that she’d only read about in books, this crazy, kinky, twisted thing, had made her feel alive in ways she didn’t understand, but wanted- needed — to experience.
“Shh,” he said finally, reaching over and sliding a hand behind her neck, massaging gently, as if he could cut her racing thoughts off with a gentle squeeze. “It’s enough, Katie.”
She swallowed her tears and pointed at her exit without a word, directing him silently to her house. Liam pulled into the snow-covered driveway, taking her hand as she reached for her purse sitting on the console between them. His was more paw than hand, swallowing hers as he caught her attention with his eyes, holding her with them. She felt awful-looked awful, she knew, red-nosed and red-faced from crying. She wanted to hide, turn away, but he held her with just the heat of his gaze.
“Show me.” It was more whisper than words.
She looked at him, confused, staring at the hand holding hers, and then she did the first thing that came to her head. She took his hand in both of hers-his was big, tanned, well-manicured, a silver ring on his middle finger-and turned it over, palm up. Katie sobbed silently, pressing her lips to the middle of his hand, head bent, tears falling onto his wrist.
She felt his other hand move in her hair, that same slow caress, heard his slow, deep breath, a sigh, and then felt his lips pressing against the top of her head, a soft, firm kiss.
“Go inside, Katie.” Liam let her go and she looked up at him in wonder, unable to speak. Patrick appeared, knocking at the window, and Liam powered it down.
“Your keys.” Patrick handed them over, and Katie noticed he was still wearing his boots and hadn’t bothered with a shirt. His chest was bare above the zipper of his Sherpa coat. He looked at her face and then at his brother’s, frowning, mistaking her tears. “Katie, I’m so sorry. Really…”
“It’s okay,” she choked, letting Patrick open the door and help her out of the car. She wanted to look back, to say something to Liam, to ask him what had just happened, what it meant. Patrick walked her to the door, still apologizing, and she let him, murmuring something as he headed back down the walkway, getting into his brother’s Maserati.
She saw Liam’s face for just one brief moment before they left, when Patrick opened the passenger door, saw Liam looking straight at her. His gaze had never wavered.
And she knew.
He’s the one.
Katie sighed, pulling misfiled books off the shelves for the third time in an hour, and it was her own damned fault. She had sandwiched a stack of fiction from A to Z without regards to alphabet in the “K” section without thinking, just automatically putting books on the shelf one after the other, her mind wandering. She couldn’t help it. It had been wandering all week, back to the moment when Liam burst into the room to rescue her, back to the ride home, her tearful, shameful confession, and mostly to that one incredible moment in his car, her lips pressed to his palm and his lips brushing her hair.
She had fought the urge to call, had struggled with her desire, confessing everything to Lori, whose cliche-machine had been running full blast, telling her that Katie had obviously gotten herself into a “fine kettle of fish now,” and while Lori didn’t want to be the “doubting Thomas,” she was suspect of the whole “smoke and mirrors” act.
So Katie had spent the week in a fog, going to work, coming home, only checking her cell phone a hundred times a day or so, sure one minute he would call, despairing that he never would the next. At least she’d lost three pounds that week, because she could hardly eat anything. She was too distracted.
“Hi there.”
It’s him.
She looked through the stacks to find the source of that voice and saw Liam peering at her between the spines of Koontz and King. Her heart hammered in her chest and immediately her palms felt clammy.
“Hi,” she said faintly, trying to discern if she was actually seeing him, or maybe she was hallucinating?
“I’m looking for a book.” He came around the stacks, his shoulders so broad they almost brushed the shelves on each side.
She straightened, librarian-mode kicking in. “What book?”
“ To Protect and Serve-a Dom’s Guide.”
Katie frowned, already running through the catalog in her head-and she had an extensive personal reading list to draw from as well. “Who’s the author?”
“Liam Quinn”
She stared at him, blinking. “You wrote a book?”
“Oh never mind, here it is.” He flashed an impossibly sexy smile, holding up a hardcover with a woman on the front. She was restrained, hands behind her, nude, back, bottom, and the side of her breast showing.