Wanting Wilder (2 page)

CHAINSFREE: Yes. I can’t sleep.

Her handle was stupid, but she hadn’t realized that until after she’d committed to it. She’d meant it to indicate that being chained set her free. It was meant to indicate a preference for bondage. Only later had she realized it sounded like she was advertising her lack of a boyfriend.

MASTRV: He’s coming from another state just to interview you. They’re interested, C. Most firms would set up a teleconference, save money.

CHAINSFREE: You’re right, of course. I’m still a bundle of nerves. I keep thinking that he’ll walk in and realize they had it all wrong and I’m not the woman for the job.

MASTRV: I doubt that. My guess is that they’ve already decided on you. Be strong and confident. Remind them why you’re better for this job than anyone else.

CHAINSFREE: I want it more. I need it more.

MASTRV: No, C. THEY need YOU. The art of persuasion is based in knowing what somebody needs and telling them how you can fulfill that need. Make them understand that nobody can do this the way you can. You’re an incredible person, C. Make them see that.

She’d often wondered what the V stood for. Vincent? Vasili? Vittorio? She had eventually settled on Vitalis. In the past year, he’d become vital to her life. She didn’t know his name or what he looked like, but in many ways, he was her closest confidant. He was the only one who understood her need for bondage, pain, and submission and hadn’t tried to take advantage of her. Her experience with dating Doms hadn’t worked out too well—they’d all been more interested in power and control than having a real relationship, so she’d given up on looking for one. Master V dominated her to a small extent, but mostly he was her friend, champion, and mentor. She told him about her problems, and she provided a sub’s perspective for him when he had girl troubles.

CHAINSFREE: You rock, Master V. You always know what to say.

MASTRV: Glad I could help. I’m going to be offline for the next few days. My brother and I will be off the grid, fishing. No computers or cell phones, just two guys and a stream. I will contact you when I return, and you can tell me all about this new job you’re getting. Now go to bed, C. Have sweet dreams.

It was a short conversation, but he’d said exactly what she needed to hear to bolster her confidence and put her mind at ease. She lay back on her pillow and slipped under the layers of blankets. September nights were cooler, and she loved sleeping enveloped in things.

Two issues swirled in her head. Thanks to Master V, neither of them was her upcoming job interview. No, at times like this she thought of Wilder. He’d introduced her to the pleasure of having a Dom so long ago, but then he’d abandoned her after that one weekend. She could still feel the way his lips felt on her body and the way the blunt tip of his cock nudged through her folds and impaled her pussy.

Then she thought of Master V. He was a stranger, but he’d been there for her for two years now. Every time she had a problem, every time she caved to desperation and let another man flog her—sometimes against her better judgment—he was there to help her talk through her issues. He lent her a Dom’s perspective, but he’d also become a strange kind of friend. They’d never met. They didn’t know each other’s names, and they’d never exchanged pictures.

In her head, the images combined. Wilder, the horny college student, merged with Master V, the wise and supportive Dom, to form the perfect man. Lydia grabbed her vibrator from her nightstand and slid it between her legs. She turned it to the pulse setting and ran it along her inner thighs. Closing her eyes, she heard Wilder’s voice telling her not to move. If she moved, he would take it away. He praised her—just as Master V would—for not wiggling her pelvis insistently.

Good girls wait for their Masters.

Lydia thrived on pleasing her Master, even if he was only in her head. “Yes,” she hissed. “I’ll wait, Master.”

She moved the tip of the vibrator to her mound and teased her slit, sliding it up and down, and she struggled not to match the movement.
Beautiful, Lydia. Look at that gorgeous pussy, dripping for me.

She whimpered. The vibrator parted her folds. He massaged her cream into her tissues and turned up the rate on the pulse feature. She opened her eyes to find those cloudless, sky-blue eyes watching her with undeniable hunger. Any second now, he would let his baser instincts overtake him, and she’d be helpless in the face of the onslaught.

“Please.” She lifted her hips in offering, but in doing so she’d disobeyed his command. Just like that, she found herself flipped over. His hand rained discipline on her ass until it throbbed in time with the pulsations of the vibrator he’d left in her pussy. “I’m sorry, Master. I just want you so much.”

He lifted her ass in the air. The vibrator was gone, and he thrust his cock home, pounding harder and faster until she screamed. When he was spent, he drew her into his arms and held her close.
Beautiful, Lydia. You are the perfect submissive.

Then she blinked and his image was gone. She cleaned her vibrator, and she was asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.

Chapter Two

“Why do you want to work for Oasis?”

The man sitting opposite Lydia had friendly eyes. They were warm and brown, intimating comfort and safety. But she wasn’t lulled by his caretaker demeanor. He also radiated a cocky confidence and a presence that marked him as a Dom. Tall, dark, and handsome, Micah O’Connor was undeniably the poster boy for everything a submissive like her craved in a man.

Except she wasn’t attracted to him. Not in the least. She enjoyed his smile and his sense of humor, but the chemistry just wasn’t there. Since this was a job interview, that was fine. She had no desire to work with a man who made her pant and fantasize. To the detriment of every relationship she’d tried to have in the last eight years, that position had already been filled by a man whose last name and current location she didn’t know.

She had a ready answer for this completely expected question. She finished sipping her vanilla latte and set it on the table between them. She discarded her polite smile in favor of something genuine. “I want to make people’s wishes come true.”

He set down his herbal tea and leaned closer. The scent of blueberries mixed with vanilla. “I know that, Lydia. That’s why I came all the way to Michigan to see you. But I’m asking why. Why do you want to make people’s wishes come true?”

It hadn’t been necessary for him to fly here from the Vermont headquarters. She had been more than willing to travel there. After all, if she got the job—and things were looking good so far—she’d be moving to Vermont. Given their previous conversations, she had every reason to be optimistic. She’d planned to scout real estate on her visit.

Blue eyes, pale as the sky on a lazy summer day, flashed in her memory. Snatches of his warm smile and the way his laughter heated her from the inside chased away the chill of the café’s air conditioner that really needed to be turned off.

Micah smiled at her, amusement crinkling at the corners of his eyes. “Tell me about your wish, Lydia. What do you want for yourself?”

She shook her head. “The wishes aren’t about me. They’re about the people baring their souls and taking a chance, hoping and praying for that new beginning.”

He nodded. “You’re a submissive.”

The stereotyped observation irked her. Being submissive didn’t mean she was driven to take care of other people. It didn’t automatically make her one of those nice people with a heart of gold. “You assume that because I want to make other people’s wishes come true, I’m submissive?”

“No. I’m a Dominant, and I’m in that line of work already. It’s clear you have a generous soul and a strong spirit. And you’re feisty. A fighter. That’s what we like about you.” He grinned, flashing one disarming dimple. “I think you’re a submissive, one lacking proper training, because you dodged the question. A Dom would have been more direct in telling me to mind my own business.”

Not everyone fell completely into either category, but that point didn’t belong in this conversation. In Oasis’s world, everyone was at least a little of one or the other, or both. After all, that was the cornerstone of their fantasy-based business. She had nothing productive to say about Micah’s observation, so she steered the conversation back to job-related skills. “I’m an excellent organizer. I’ve worked for several nonprofits.”

He waved a hand to cut her off. “I’m aware of your qualifications. I didn’t fly here to find out things I could find out over the phone.”

Part of her was dying to ask the million-dollar question. Why
had
he flown all this way? She opted for better phrasing, noting that he was right about her not giving direct answers, though she didn’t do that because she was submissive. She did it because she had things to hide. “I don’t understand what you’re asking. I’ve never made a wish. Does that make you think I’m not in a position to understand other people’s wishes?”

He dropped his gaze, studying the heavy cardboard cup of tea between them. “I don’t know, Lydia. That’s what I’m here to figure out. That’s why I came to you and asked to meet in a place where you feel comfortable. Everyone who works for Oasis is somehow involved in the lifestyle. The wishes submitted to us aren’t always clear. They appear clear, but they’re not. There’s always so much that’s missing.”

Understanding clicked in her head. “You think that I can’t figure out the essence of a wish if I haven’t found satisfaction in a relationship of my own.”

He slid his hand across the table and squeezed her wrist. “I just need to know you’ve discovered the joy of being in a fulfilling relationship. Even if he or she wasn’t ‘the one,’ you had at least one moment when you understood the full meaning of how BDSM relationships fill a need nothing else can fill.”

Oh, she had experienced more than a moment. She’d enjoyed a blissful two days and nights in the arms of a man she couldn’t forget, the man who first introduced her to the joys of submission and discipline.

Lydia lifted her chin, a defiant gesture she used to cover the heat flaming in her cheeks, and pushed away the memory of his face. It followed her around, haunting her. Sometimes she imagined Master V was him, but then she’d shake herself gently away from that line of longing. Master V was a great man, but he wasn’t the one who made her wake up with panties moist from a hot dream.

She exhaled, reminding herself that they needed her. And the middle of a job interview was not the time to daydream about Wilder. “I know what the wishers are searching for. Just because I haven’t had a real relationship with a Dom doesn’t mean I’m ignorant of what they want.” Nobody had come close to giving her what that quarterback Dom had made her achieve.

Micah’s pleased smile slowed the frantic beating of her heart. “It sounds like you’ve had a defining experience.”

Defining? Yes, but that wasn’t it. No, being publicly flogged hadn’t done more than open her eyes to the fact she really liked to be on the receiving end of the flogger. The definition had come later, when she’d opened her lids and found those blue eyes piercing her soul. He had smiled and helped her sit up. He had talked to her and held her hand. Not once that night had he tried anything else. It was like he could sense her vulnerability and knew exactly how far to push her. Every other Dom with whom she’d tried to cultivate a relationship had wanted to focus on sex. Sir hadn’t done that. She’d felt cherished even before he’d kissed her.

She lifted her gaze and regarded Micah intently. “You know what I want? If I had to wish, I'd want a Dom who can keep his dick in his pants. I want a Dom who understands that a relationship, respect, and friendship come first.”

Micah’s expression didn’t change in the face of her quiet vehemence. “I think you’ll do. You’ll start in three weeks. I’ll send you the paperwork, make the travel arrangements, and set you up in a company apartment.”

Her eyes rounded, nearly bugging out of her head. “You don’t have to do all that for me. I can make my own arrangements.”

He rose to his feet and stuck out his hand. “At Oasis, we take care of our own. We’re one big family, Lydia, and you’re now part of it. I’ll take care of everything, even packing and moving. You just show up when the plane ticket tells you to.”

She couldn’t stop the giggle of glee, and she barely managed to refrain from hurling herself into his arms for a hug. Ever since she’d first heard of Oasis, she’d wanted to work for them. Many people might want to have a fantasy fulfilled, but she’d moved past that a long time ago. Her perfect weekend fling had come and gone.

Master V was going to be so happy for her.

Chapter Three

Lydia sailed into the building like she owned it. Her heels clicked on the white-and-gray polished marble floor, echoing through the cavernous room. The domed ceiling rose four stories overhead, a swirl of color broken with windows to allow a good amount of natural light. If she took the time to stop and look up, Lydia knew she would find a series of frescoes depicting the philosophy of the company, painted Michelangelo-style.

But she didn’t look up. She had seen the pictures online—some of them, anyway. All the people depicted in the paintings were either naked or scantily clad. Each showed a different erotic S/M or bondage scene. Since Oasis existed to fulfill BDSM fantasies, those came as no surprise.

Complex knot designs created an abstract backdrop and served to tie the tableau together. If she could let herself go, she would stop and stare at them for hours, fantasizing about what she wished she had the courage to find. But fantasies were for other people. The need to help people make those dreams come true had fueled her aggressive pursuit of a job at Oasis.

At any rate, Lydia didn’t want to gawk. This was her first day on the job, her first day with the company as a wish coordinator. Stopping to marvel at the beauty of the architecture and decor wouldn’t do anything to further the impression she wanted to make. Maybe it was Sunday and the building was virtually empty, but she had to build a no-nonsense reputation from the beginning. Micah might have tried to leave the impression that she was part of a family, but that kind of relationship came after time had passed. It wasn’t a starting point.