Unrestrained Read Online Free PDF Page B

his lips, brushing a kiss over the pad. They knew what type of animal they each were, and they’d met through a sexually focused club, so this type of flirtation was meaningless. Two Doms teasing one another with no intent to engage. Except as he continued to hold her wrist, his eyes became more serious, while her fingers loosened, becoming more pliant.
    “The name doesn’t fit anymore, does it?” he asked. “That’s what you were saying.”
    She swallowed, sat back. As she did, he let her slide free. She looked out the window. She’d been maudlin earlier. Sad, Jimmy had called it, but still dangerously mawkish. Now was not a time to make impetuous decisions. “You don’t need to take me home. Use the car to go back to your own place, and by that time I’ll be steady enough to drive. No sense in inconveniencing you by trying to get a cab out to my place this time of night.”
    When he said nothing, she settled deeper into the seat, closed her eyes, and crossed her arms over herself. “All right?”
    “You’re no inconvenience. And I’ll see how you’re doing when we get to my place. My name is Dale. Dale Rousseau.”
    “Rousseau.” She smiled, eyes still closed. The warmth of the car was making her drowsy. Her trembling had stopped. Things were slowing down again, the fog returning. “‘Nothing is less in our power than the heart, and far from commanding, we are forced to obey it.’”
    “Intriguing choice. ‘To live is not merely to breathe; it is to act; it is to make use of our organs, senses, faculties—of all those parts of ourselves which give us the feeling of existence.’”
    “A Master who knows his Rousseau. Thank you, Dale.”
    She wasn’t sure if she was thanking him for knowing Rousseau, for driving her home or for rescuing her from the two thugs, but it didn’t matter. A lady always offered her thanks for a kindness, and so far he’d been nothing but kind.
    It just showed the depths of her capricious mood that she yearned for the part of him she’d seen earlier in the evening—when he’d been far less kind.

TWO
    A thena opened her eyes. She didn’t recognize her surroundings. The room was small, probably the size of her walk-in closet, though in all fairness, her walk-in closet was the size of a small bedroom. The quilt over her was clean, the mellow ivory of the white fields suggesting advanced age. It had a blue and brown wedding ring pattern. There was a braided rug on the floor with the same colors. The nightstand, the only other furniture in the room, held an old-fashioned alarm clock, the round kind with hands showing the time. Instead of a.m. or p.m., there was a dial just above the fulcrum of the arms, showing a sunrise for morning. She expected it would slowly shift into a full sun afternoon view, then a moon and starry sky picture for night. She remembered having one of those when she was younger.
    The carafe by the bed held cold water, the ice partially melted and condensation collected on the glass sides, absorbed by the folded cloth on which the carafe sat. She saw a note next to the clock, propped up so she could see it in her current position.
    Sit up slow. That’s an order. Take the aspirin. Do you remember your name? My name?
    She saw the two pills by the note. Dale . . . that was his name. Dale Rousseau. She certainly remembered her own. He’d woken her up a few times in the night, made her say it, made her tell him the name of the club, her favorite New Orleans restaurant, what color the sky was.
    Slowly, things started coming back. She’d dozed off in the car. She hadn’t woken until he opened her passenger door. At that point, she thought she’d merely nodded off at the gas station, and still expected to find herself there. Instead, she’d blinked blearily at the chain-link gate in front of the car. Three strands of barbed wire ran along the top. From the silhouettes of old cars piled up behind it, it appeared to be the entrance to a junkyard.