The Master & the Secretary (Finding Master Right Book 2) Read online

  Unlike Tess, who worked meticulously and neatly on one thing at a time, Ryan liked to spread out over every available surface, balancing twenty things in his head at a time and somehow pulling it all together.

  Peeking around his door and trying to tell herself it was cool whichever way it went, Tess had said in a casual tone, “Hey, Ryan. It’s Friday. I was thinking of popping over to that new Indian place to check it out. Any chance you’d like to join me?”

  She’d held her breath as she waited for his response, telling herself it didn’t matter either way, though it did.

  To her delight, he replied, “Sure, that’s a great idea.” He glanced at his watch. “Might as well take a half day—it’s Friday, right?” He grinned. “Seriously, though, I’m glad you came to rescue me. I’ve been staring at the same legal opinion for the past twenty minutes, and my brain is totally fried. Not to mention, I worked through lunch and I’m starving. I could definitely go for some good Indian.”

  The food was spicy and delicious, and they bantered in an easy, flirtatious way that made Tess’s heart skip a beat. When the meal was over, Ryan had turned to Tess and said, “I’d invite you over, but my roommate’s girlfriend seems to have kind of moved in lately, and they tend to forget I live there. Last time I came home they were both half-naked and making out on the living room couch. I really need to find a new roommate.”

  “We could go to my place,” Tess ventured, butterflies fluttering in her stomach.

  “Sounds like a plan,” Ryan agreed with a smile. He followed her in his car to her neighborhood, which was only a few miles from the restaurant.

  To her surprise, and perhaps a little to her chagrin, Ryan didn’t make any immediate moves on her. Instead, they’d sat together in her living room and just talked. Ryan really seemed to want to know her, which was definitely a refreshing change from most guys she’d dated.

  They’d talked for hours, sharing stories about their childhoods, their families, their lives, and Tess felt as if they’d been friends forever. As if by tacit agreement, neither of them talked much about past relationships, which was fine with Tess. When talk had turned to Nana, Ryan had held Tess in his arms, soothing away her tears.

  She had expected him to make a move at that point, using the tenderness of the moment to shift the mood, seguing from a chaste, brotherly kiss to a lover’s kiss.

  When he hadn’t, she had been at once impressed and annoyed. She liked that he was a gentleman and hadn’t taken advantage of her tears, but weren’t they on a date? She’d been too shy to make her own move, however, and the moment had passed.

  The conversation slowly eased into lighter things, and they gossiped for a few minutes about the people they worked with. Finally, Ryan said, “I’ve had a fantastic time, Tess. I can’t believe we didn’t connect before this. I get so bogged down in my work that sometimes I forget what’s really important. I’m so glad we did this. Thank you.”

  He stood and held out his arms. Tess stood too, stepping into his warm embrace, her heart kicking up a notch in anticipation. He had kissed her then, his lips sweet and warm against hers, but only for a moment or two.

  Hungry for more, she had wrapped her arms around him, pulling him against her as she pressed her tongue against his lips until they parted.

  To her complete frustration, after another moment or two, he dropped his arms and pulled away from her. Instead of asking where the bedroom was, he said, “Can I call you tomorrow? I was going to go in to the office, but I think I’d much rather spend the day with you, unless, of course, you have plans.” He had smiled at her, a wide smile that revealed the dimple in his left cheek.

  “Sure, that would be great,” Tess had agreed, telling herself sternly that he was behaving sensibly, and she should follow suit. Much better to take their time, rather than tumble into a one-night stand they’d both regret on Monday morning.

  They spent a wonderful Saturday, sharing breakfast at an outdoor café, moving on to stroll in the botanical gardens, and then taking in a matinee movie and sharing a late lunch. In the movie theater, Ryan had put his arm loosely around her shoulders, and Tess had leaned into him with a happy sigh.

  But after the meal, he’d bailed again, claiming it was his mom’s birthday and he couldn’t get out of going, as much as he would have liked to. At least the goodbye kiss had been long and lingering, leaving her literally weak in the knees.

  That night alone in bed, she had masturbated, imagining Ryan naked and rising over her like a Greek god as she rubbed herself to a marginally satisfying orgasm. It was lonely business, but it did the job, at least enough for her to fall asleep.

  They barely saw one another over the next week, each of them piled high with caseloads and paperwork. Tess didn’t make it home before ten any night except Friday. They did text and speak on the phone every night, but it wasn’t until the following Saturday that they managed to reconnect.

  Ryan was going to take her out this time, to his favorite Japanese place. Tess, never having tried sushi, was a little leery, but willing. She wore a sexy, short skirt and a silky blouse she knew complemented her hair and coloring. She couldn’t remember being this excited to be with someone since… well, ever!

  Leaving their shoes at the door, they had sat side by side on silk cushions set directly on the tatami mat in a private room with rice paper walls and a sliding rice paper door. A brightly colored paper lantern hung from the ceiling, throwing off muted, romantic light.

  Their waitress was a tiny Asian woman dressed in a kimono. Tess let Ryan do the ordering. The waitress glided out and returned a moment later with hot tea and sake.

  The hot rice wine took a little getting used to, but after the third small cup, Tess was feeling no pain. The waitress returned after a while with a beautiful plate of sushi rolls and sashimi that looked more like art than food. Ryan had smiled at the woman and said something in Japanese. The waitress had smiled broadly, nodding and bowing as she retreated.

  “Wow,” Tess had said, “do you know Japanese?”

  “You just heard the extent of it,” Ryan had laughed. “I said thank you, that looks delicious.” He picked up a pair of chopsticks. “Let me show you how to eat it. I hope you’ll love it as much as I do.”

  He gestured toward the artfully arranged fish and rice. “You should try the tuna first. It’s nice and mild.” He picked up a small bowl and lifted a bit of the pale orange vegetable. “You take a little of this, this is pickled ginger”—he placed it on the piece of sushi—“and a little of this green stuff, which is called wasabi. It’s a kind of horseradish, and you have to be careful not to use too much or you’ll get what I call a wasabi rush.”

  Tess picked up her chopsticks, hoping she’d somehow manage to pick up a piece without making a complete fool of herself. But, to her relief, Ryan said, “Contrary to some American misperceptions, sushi is considered finger food in Japan.” He picked up the sushi in his fingers and held it out to Tess. “Here you go—food for the gods.”

  He brought his hand closer to her mouth, his green eyes smoldering as if the two of them were about to have sex instead of food. The room was charged with sudden, electric tension, and Tess’s lips parted of their own accord, her eyes locked on Ryan’s. His fingers grazed her mouth as he placed the sushi on her tongue.

  Tess chewed, trying to ignore the fact she was eating raw fish. To her delighted surprise, an explosion of flavors burst on her tongue—spicy, sweet, salty and delicious, with absolutely nothing fishy about it.

  “Wow,” she’d enthused. “This is great. I had no idea.”

  Ryan prepared himself a piece and ate it. Tess started to reach for another piece, but Ryan stopped her with a hand on her bare thigh that sent a rush of heat over her skin. “I’ll feed you, Tess. Your only job is to take what I give you.”

  A strange shudder moved through her at his words, and she had the thrilling feeling he was talking about more than the sushi.

  The food was wonderful, and they ordere
d twice more. Along the way, she lost count of how many small bottles of sake they’d consumed. While Ryan didn’t seem in the least tipsy, Tess was definitely feeling its effects by the end of the meal. “That stuff is stronger than you realize,” she had remarked. “I don’t even know if I can stand up.”

  Ryan rested his hand lightly on her thigh as he drove her back to her place, and Tess’s entire body was thrumming with barely controlled lust. He parked and moved quickly around the car to open the door, which charmed her.

  They walked arm in arm to the door of her apartment building. She punched in the code to release the front door and Ryan pulled it open, but made no move to follow her inside. “I had a great time tonight, Tess,” he said with a smile.

  “Wait, what?” Tess had blurted, alcohol loosening her tongue. “Aren’t you coming up? What the hell, Ryan? How long am I supposed to wait for you? What is this, the eighteenth century? Don’t you want to fuck me?” As soon as the words had tumbled, uncensored, out of her mouth, she’d blushed to the roots of her hair.

  Ryan had just laughed. “Of course I do. Are you kidding me? I’ve wanted to since I first sat across from you in the conference room when we were working on that case together. Even ignoring the fact we work together and that could get sticky, here’s the thing, see…” He’d paused, sobering. “I’ll just tell you straight out. I have the bad habit of jumping into bed too soon. It’s great for a while, but it usually fizzles out when we figure out all we really have in common is sex.”

  He had put his hands on her shoulders and stared deep into her eyes. “This feels different, Tess. We’ve got something, you and me. This time I’ve sworn to myself not to blow it. I don’t want to ruin things by fucking you first and getting to know you later.”

  Tess had stared back. She was still drunk, but it wasn’t the wine that spurred her on. She had to have him, and she was done waiting, end of story. She’d crossed her arms and shaken her head. “Sorry, dude. Not going for it. Feeding me with your fingers like that was definite foreplay, and you don’t want to leave a girl frustrated, do you? Either you come upstairs with me this instant and make passionate love to me, or I’m going to have to rape you right here and now.”

  Ryan had stared at her, his mouth falling open in surprise and, even through the fog of the sake, she suddenly feared she’d gone too far.

  But then a slow, sensual smile had lifted his lips. “All right then. We can’t have you arrested for sexual assault—you might be disbarred.”

  Tess didn’t remember much after that, at least not the mechanics of going up in the rickety elevator and tumbling into her apartment. What she did remember was the first time he’d entered her—his cock hard and perfect as he lifted his chiseled body over her.

  He had made love to her with a kind of wild, exhilarating desperation that had both thrilled and almost frightened her. Though his kisses had been tender, he’d ravished her in the bed, thrusting inside her as he held her wrists above her head in a strong, dominant grip. She had been completely captive beneath him, at his mercy.

  And she’d loved every second of it.

  They’d made love all night, and she lost count of her orgasms, which he pulled from her with his cock, his fingers and his mouth, until she was nothing but raw, gasping sensation. He seemed instinctively to know just how far to take her until she was teetering over a sharp, sensual edge. Then he would pull her back, denying her the release she craved.

  For Tess, the turn-on was as much what he withheld as what he gave. Ryan played her like an instrument, until she was burning with passion, her entire being focused entirely on him and what he was doing to her.

  Finally exhausted, they’d lain together in a tangled tumble of limbs, the scent of sex ripe in the air, too spent to speak or even move. “Tess,” Ryan had finally murmured, pulling her into his arms. “I have a confession to make.”

  Tess had stiffened, suddenly alert. Was this where he admitted he actually had a girlfriend waiting at home, or worse, a wife? Was that why he’d never talked about past relationships?

  “Yes?” she managed to murmur back, trying to keep her voice calm.

  “I think I’m falling in love with you,” he said. Then he laughed, the joy in the sound like sunlight warming Tess from the inside out.

  She laughed in response. “That’s okay. We’re even, because I think I’m falling in love with you, too.”

  Chapter 4

  When Tess woke, Ryan lay sprawled beside her in the bed, his arm flung casually over her midriff, his lips slightly parted, his hair rumpled. She eased carefully from under his arm and slipped out of the bed.

  After a quick shower, Tess smiled at her image in the mirror as she toweled herself dry. Ryan was the best thing ever to enter her life. How she wished she could have introduced him to Nana. They would have loved each other instantly, she was sure of it.

  When she came out of the bathroom, Ryan hadn’t moved. Letting him sleep, she went into the kitchen to make coffee. Pulling some croissants from the freezer, she heated them and prepared a tray with mugs of coffee and the warm croissants.

  Ryan opened his eyes as she entered the bedroom. “Hey, sexy,” he said, a slow, sleepy smile moving over his face. He hoisted himself into a sitting position against the headboard, his eyes now focused on the tray. “Wow, a beautiful naked woman, incredibly hot sex and hot coffee. Have I died and gone to heaven?”

  Tess laughed. “If so, I’m right there with you, babe.” She set down the tray on the nightstand and as she did so, she noticed the stack of Olivia’s journals. Again she wondered—should she share them with Ryan?

  She handed him a mug of coffee and a plate with a croissant, and slipped back into bed beside him. She had thought she’d keep Olivia’s secrets to herself, but Ryan was fast becoming her significant other. Based on the intense, sexy, alpha-male way he had made love to her, he would certainly understand and even applaud Olivia’s D/s explorations. Tess doubted he would be judgmental or negative, but were the diaries hers to share?

  Then again, Tess herself had already violated Olivia’s privacy with what she’d read so far. Rather than being horrified by her grandmother’s words from so long ago, it was as if Tess had stumbled onto a secret language—one that spoke directly to her heart.

  What had Olivia said about Mr. Stevenson?

  It’s like he was speaking some secret language to me. Some language I didn’t know I understood.

  And Ryan speaks those same words to me, Tess thought. He would understand the language, because we all four share it—that unlikely pair from long ago, and Ryan and me today.

  At that moment, she made her decision. She picked up the first journal and said, “I’ve got something really interesting to show you.”

  “Oh, yeah? And what is that?”

  She told him about her discovery, giving him a thumbnail sketch of the Nana she knew compared to the woman who had written the astonishing account of budding sexual discovery.

  Ryan listened, amazement registering on his face as Tess described what she had found. Then he grinned roguishly, his eyes twinkling. Turning toward her, he drew his finger along her cheek, his gaze burning into her. “Just imagine what that must have been like for her. Making dinner and helping the kids with their homework and having boring, duty sex with your husband on the one hand, while at work a secret world of sexual submission and increasingly bizarre demands is opening up for you. Sounds pretty damn hot to me.” His expression softened suddenly with concern. “It must be strange for you, though, knowing it was your grandmother who penned those words.”

  “Especially at first,” Tess agreed. “I guess you don’t really think of your parents and grandparents as having lives outside what you’ve always known, which is pretty self-centered. I’ve come to think of her as Olivia when I read the journals, not as my grandmother. She’s more like a friend I would have liked to know.”

  Ryan had nodded. “That makes sense. Are you going to let me read them?”

&nbs
p; “Yes. I’ve only read part of the first one myself. I’ve been so busy at work and”—she flashed an impish grin—“other things. I’ve been kind of parceling it out, savoring each entry. You can read up to where I left off, and then we can read it together. How’s that?”

  “Sounds great,” Ryan agreed.

  Tess drank her coffee and ate her croissant as Ryan read. After a while, he looked up. “That Mr. Stevenson is a piece of work, huh?”

  “He is,” Tess agreed with a laugh. “He’s still alive, you know. He called the house.”

  “No kidding? So they were still going at it hot and heavy in their eighties?”

  Tess shrugged. “I don’t know about that. He didn’t even know she’d died, so I kind of doubt it.” She gave Ryan a brief account of the phone call. “I’ve been wondering if I should call him back. He hung up before I could tell him much.” She paused, adding, “He did seem strongly affected by her death though. He sounded pretty broken up.”

  “His wife may still be alive,” Ryan replied. “We don’t know anything about his circumstances now.”

  Tess thought about it, nodding slowly. “Yeah. I’d love to talk to the guy sometime, if I could get up the nerve. I jotted down the number from her landline caller ID, just in case.”

  “Good thinking, counselor. Keep the evidence for future discovery by the court. Can we read another entry? How about you read it out loud for me?”

  ~*~

  October 30, 1961

  Well, he waited a whole week, but Mr. Stevenson finally asked to see the beautiful undergarments he’d bought me. To be fair, the man was out of town on a business trip Thursday and Friday, and I only worked half days a result. I still wore the sexy panties and garter belt every day. It made me feel closer to him.

  I have to admit, there’s something very sexy about sliding those stockings slowly up my legs in the bathroom at work. Plus, there’s the ritual aspect of it. Mr. Stevenson says rituals are important, and will become more a part of my training as time goes on. My training! Can you imagine? Like I’m some kind of prize show horse.