Exposed Exposed (Dom Nation #1) - E. Davies Page 0,5
Dom. It was crazy to me—I’d never seen someone so young who carried such a presence with him. I hadn’t thought it possible. I’d thought you had to be Seb’s age, or at least my age, before you could make me tongue-tied. Apparently not.
My gaze fell to the ground again, fixed firmly on my toes as my cheeks burned hotter than the sun.
Fuck, he was going to judge me for being a scared, sniveling wreck of a man despite the two decades I had on him.
I should just—I should go, I thought. I should leave, and run, and bury the parts of me that screamed for release with anything I could, and pray that the lips of time would draw the sting from my wounds.
But when I turned, choked back my panic, and made a blind and desperate grab for the door handle, his voice rang out again.
“Wait.”
There. The note that rang through his voice, in a single syllable, confirmed all my suspicions about him. This slip of a man could wrap me around his thumb in two more syllables, I was sure of it.
I didn’t know him from Adam. Was I that desperate? That any Dom who wanted could bring me to heel?
No. No, there was something different flooding my body, and it was utterly unfamiliar. This man—nameless to me—was like a siren. I was under his spell, quivering and awaiting his next command.
“Sit in the Care Corner,” the man continued, his voice softening. “You look like you need it. And let Daddy bring you a cup of green tea.”
Him? A Daddy? My Daddy?
I should laugh. Or cry. Or… leave.
Leave, leave, leave, I told my body, but it wouldn’t move. My dick and my heart and the needy, broken part of me had banded together to oust my brain from the decision-making council tonight.
It felt… It felt… holy crap. It felt like subspace.
I’d expected to be in Dom Nation when I slipped into this non-space, this timeless void, this single-minded purpose, this simple ritual of right and wrong, cause and effect, obedience and punishment.
Not in a brightly lit cupcake shop, staring at the black marble underfoot, my nose flooding with the aroma of sugar and spice and… something else that compelled my aching soul with the heady mix of softness and a whisper of danger.
Who knew where this would lead?
Despite the odds, I obeyed.
2
Rex
He didn’t laugh at me.
Not mean-spirited, not with disbelief, not even in the all right, I’ll humor you just this once way.
The invisible ropes around my throat went slack, and a smile touched my lips.
This man—this beautiful man with not so much an edge of fear in his eyes as a whole damn blade… he listened to me.
Well, not straightaway. That was only fair. No sub was obliged to listen to any random Dominant around. That was some old-school bullshit I didn’t believe in.
He stood there, touching the door handle, head bowed and spirit drawn so tightly in on himself that it would bring anyone to tears. Then, he raised his head and turned, a faraway look in his eyes that I knew. I’d seen it many times before.
This man—this broken man with such deep, expressive eyes and a cyclone of emotions whirling around him—he needed me.
Instinct took the wheel.
No longer was I Rex Black, proprietor of the brand-new Daddy Cakes, nervous and excited about my very first real customer.
I was Master X.
Master X could handle a skittish, frightened, bruised boy; could kiss the tears from his cheeks, the dirt from his knees, and the stain from his soul.
I’d long ago stopped questioning my intuition about a man’s… shall we call them, inclinations. This man might be twenty years my senior, but there wasn’t a shadow of a doubt: he was a submissive.
The second he’d walked in, it was like I’d breathed in a cloud of pheromones. We were polar-opposite magnets, the pull between us stronger than gravity.
And that was why I was certain: however hard he fell, the part of me that was Master X—which was the best part of me—could pull him upright again.
“Here you go.” I slid into the seat across from him at the table in the Cozy Corner and then carefully pushed one of the two cups across the table.
The brand-new white cups had small, elegant black roses twisting across them. I wanted custom cups with whips and chains, but they’d have to wait until I had more than one skittish boy of a customer.