Mirror of My Soul by Joey Hill (book club recommendations .TXT) 📕

diversity. Protect it, cherish it and let the beauty of her many different flowers become a bouquet of possibilities they could share.

His rational mind knew all that, could analyze it forever while his soul merely rolled its eyes and pushed him toward the path it had always known was the right one.

Claiming her fully, making her dark and light his now and forever so there would be no path she had to walk alone ever again. It was what she’d said she wanted in that one word she’d whispered in his ear. The Master in him wasn’t waiting to hear it twice.

Putting her down, he guided her in and closed the door. He stopped her at the foot of the bed, the only light coming from the dim strip of hallway light under the door.

73

Joey W. Hill

The house was silent, all the guests occupied outside and Sarah’s kitchen on the opposite end of the house. It was just the two of them.

Marguerite watched him move to the dresser. He’d been so quiet since they left the party, but then words didn’t feel necessary. Flame illuminated him when he lit a trio of candles that were there, along with an arrangement of fresh flowers, a stack of scripts and a belt he’d apparently discarded earlier in favor of the one he was currently wearing.

“The picture of your wife is gone.” The small wooden box with the rings was as well.

“Not gone. Just moved. I had Robert hang it along the stairs with the other family pictures.” He turned, began to remove the wedding ring.

“No,” she spoke softly. “Don’t.”

He stopped, a rare look of surprise crossing his face.

“It reminds me who you are.”

He put the pieces back together, by himself. And most people couldn’t have done that…

About eighteen months after she went back to Europe, he went after her… He never divorced her, you see.

Sarah’s words echoed in her head, reminded her of the type of man he was. She met his gaze across the room. “I meant what I wrote on that note. If I’m here, it’s because I want all of you. You’ve told me you want me, light and dark. Give me the same trust.”

Something painful passed through his expression, his fingers still over the ring. She stepped forward, one step, two steps. Kneeling before him, she took his hands, separated them to press her lips to that ring finger and rub her cheek against his knuckles. When he drew in an unsteady breath, she made a new discovery. The loyalty and devotion of a submissive could be even stronger than the power of a Master.

“Why did you move the picture?”

“I loved her, will always love her, but this room is yours and mine now. I wanted you to know that when you stepped into it.”

“When? Not if?” She tried to sound challenging, but her heart was pounding too hard. It increased as he drew her to her feet, took a scarf from a drawer.

“When. Not if. Another day and I would have come for you. And I think you know that.”

She put up a hand, uncertainty returning, and halted the scarf’s upward advance.

“What are you doing?”

“Blindfolding you. Making love to you the way I wish. Trust me, angel. For once I want you to try to relinquish all control to me. Try to trust me as your subs trust you.

To give them pleasure, to keep them safe.”

She lowered her hand as he tied the scarf around her head, taking away shapes and shadows, leaving only darkness.

“That’s an illusion. I can’t protect them.”

74

Mirror of My Soul

“I’ve heard about your vengeful streak. I disagree.” His lips brushed her forehead.

When he moved away, he held on to her hand until the last possible moment.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m right here. I’m just turning on some music.”

The rumble of the doors of the heavy armoire, the click of equipment, a remote. The quiet trundle of a CD player opening, closing.

He came back as the first strains of “Unchained Melody”, the version done by the Righteous Brothers, poured into the quiet darkness of her mind. His hands stroked through her hair, spreading it out on her shoulders. It soothed, made some of her anxiety recede.

“Every time you see me, you take down my hair. I was thinking of cutting it all off.”

His hands curled in, tugged. “You’d kill me, angel. You don’t know what your hair does to me when it falls down your body like this. All I can think of is Lady Godiva riding through the village on a palfrey, clothed only in her beautiful hair.”

Then his hands moved from her shoulders under her arms. He hooked his thumbs

into either side of the sleeveless cream dress, taking it down, baring her breasts, folding it down to her waist. He left it there and cupped her breasts, one in each hand as her hands quivered at her sides, not interfering with his pleasure, their pleasure. Touching the curves, he moved his hands over them slowly, taking his time such that she knew he was watching every change in her body. Not just the tightening of the areola and nipple, but the elevation in her breath, the pulse of her throat, the ripple of gooseflesh in one place, a flush in the other. He kept fondling one breast, but captured one of her hands, lifted it to his mouth, nibbled her fingers. One by one he kissed them, then made his way down her palm to trace her wrist pulse with his tongue as she shivered.

As the poignant, powerful notes of the song continued, she felt them unfold within her like the chapters of her life, mapping her in and out, everything she was there for him to see. It made her tremble in a way she couldn’t stop. Halting his sensual nibbling, he dropped to one knee to rub his cheek against her midriff, slide his hands around to her thighs and the