Masters of the Shadowlands 7 - This is who I am by Sinclair Cherise Page B

swallow. The sheets were cool. Surely that’s why she was shivering.
    His footsteps were softer than normal. He’d removed his boots. As he entered the room, though, she saw he still wore his jeans. Thank you, God.
    In silence, he pulled the covers back and settled beside her. Warm.
    She snuggled against his side with a sigh.
    He didn’t move, letting her take things at her own speed. Letting her decide. The beauty of his patience made her eyes well with tears.
    The knowledge that he wanted her sent a hum through her system. I know him . He’d touched her intimately at the auction. Again at the Shadowlands. Hands calloused from work moving over her skin. His deep voice whispering in her ear.
    She wanted him, oh yes , but could she have sex with him without panicking? In San Diego, she’d thought she’d be celibate for…oh, a decade or so. At least. But that was before Sam had set desire simmering deep inside her.
    But now what?
    In grade school, she’d been so shy that reading aloud had terrified her, and if she stalled, her nervousness increased until she couldn’t speak at all. So she would always volunteer to go first.
    Now, even as she lay beside Sam, her anxiety was rising. Time to start while she still could. She pushed up onto one elbow.
    In the dim light, his face was shadowy as his pale eyes studied her face. “Tell me what you want to do.”
    She took his hand from her shoulder and moved it to her breast. “I want to…to try.”
    He didn’t even pretend to misunderstand her. “All right.” His answer was immediate. Simple. “We’re not playing now though. ‘No’ means no. ‘Stop’ means stop. Is that clear?”
    Not playing, but you couldn’t take the Dom out of the man. He was still setting the rules. Her lips quivered, then curved. “Yes, Sir.”
    His laugh was a rumbled chuckle before he kissed her. Oh, she remembered his lips. Firm and knowledgeable, but more gentle this time. As if he’d let her decide how fast and how far they’d go.
    “Condoms?” he asked.
    She rolled away, grabbed a packet from the bedside table, and returned to his arms before she lost her nerve.
    As he pulled the condom from her clenched fingers, the war started inside her. How could she have asked him for sex? That was disgusting. Sleazy. Bad. She was bad.
    When he kissed her, her body stiffened. He lifted his head, his lips an inch from hers. “Talk to me.”
    I want this. I don’t. I shouldn’t . “I don’t want to…decide.” She felt wrong. Dirty. Wanting to have sex was—
    His eyes narrowed, and then he gripped her hair, holding her head immobile as he took her lips. Not cruelly, not like…them. Them. The slavers . Like an avalanche, memories swept over her, flattening her.
    A nasty pinch on her thigh made her jerk. “Stay with me, girl.” His growling voice was like sandpaper, scraping away the horrors, digging down to where her nerves were alive. “Say my name.”
    His unyielding expression set up a trembling in her belly that had nothing to do with fear. “Sam.”
    “Again.” His left arm around her waist tightened as he closed his other hand on her breast. Cupping, kneading, tugging. His penetrating gaze stayed on her face, and his fingers closed on her nipple. And pinched…
    When the pressure turned to pain, sensation streamed in a wave of light and heat straight to her core. “ Sam .”
    His lips curved in a ruthless smile. “Good that you respond to the reins.” His hand moved to her other breast, no longer gentle but demanding. Yet…careful. Never with the careless brutality that the Overseer— “Ow!” Her hip stung where he’d given it a mean pinch.
    “When I want you to think, I’ll tell you.” And how could such an arrogant statement make her stomach drop? He took her lips again, and at the same time she felt him untying the lacing at the top of her nightgown, pushing it to her waist in a whisper of cool silk. His hand returned to her bare breasts. Calloused,