Blurb
Krista Matthews thought nothing could be harder than losing her husband and Master to suicide until the man he’d entrusted her care to left also. By the time Dr. Dax Hayes returned from an overseas volunteer medical tour, she thought she was over his defection and ready to re-immerse herself in the BDSM world she needed and missed so much – without his help. One scene proves how wrong she was, and after Master Dax’s timely rescue, she agrees to let him tutor her back into the lifestyle. She just didn't count on her growing feelings for the strict Dom, or his refusal to take her over completely, the way she craves.
Dr. Dax Hayes fell for Krista Matthews the minute he looked into her blue eyes and saw the sated, content look she shared with her husband, Dr. Kurt Matthews. He managed to keep his feelings and lust under control until his friend and colleague asked him to join him in gifting Krista with a ménage for her birthday. Knowing it was a mistake, but unable to resist, Dax succumbed to the temptation of this one-time scene, never realizing where it would lead. A year later, after sealing his fate with a questionable act, he flees on a guilt trip, only to return and discover nothing has changed – he still wants Krista with an ache that won’t be assuaged by anyone else.
Unable to resist stepping in when Krista gets herself in trouble, Dax again gives in to temptation and aids the one woman he can never have back into the lifestyle her submissive nature needs. When Krista learns the truth, will her feelings be strong enough to forgive him, or has he gambled everything only to lose it all in the end?
Publisher's Note: This book is intended for adults only. It contains elements of power exchange and explicit scenes.
Excerpt
I am in love with another man’s wife. Widow, Dax Hayes amended as he looked from Krista Matthews’ grief-stricken face to the coffin waiting to be lowered into the ground. His mouth went dry, his heart beating a rapid tattoo that threatened to burst from his chest at that guilt-ridden revelation. Jesus, why did that slap-in-the-face acknowledgement have to choose this moment, in this place, to rear its ugly head?
With considerable effort, Dax shifted his gaze away from her red-rimmed, sorrowful blue eyes, resisting the urge to cross over to her even as he admitted his strong feelings for his colleague’s wife didn’t come as a surprise. He’d wanted Krista the moment he’d glanced across the surgery room and looked into her eyes for the first time two years ago, and nothing had changed since. There had been something in those eyes, a sated expression he rarely caught on a woman’s face—not even a sub he’d just satisfied through strict, sometimes painful, stimulating control. That look had drawn on his dominant instincts and stirred his lust in a new, exciting way; so much so, he recalled giving serious consideration to asking her out and breaking his steadfast rule of not dating hospital employees.
Another first for him had been when his friend and surgical partner had introduced the new surgical tech as his wife, and the swift kick to the gut from that announcement did nothing to level off Dax’s interest. Even though a good number of medical professionals of his acquaintance thought nothing of infidelity, he never crossed that line. At least, not without the spouse’s invitation and approval. He had no moral objections to participating in a consensual threesome. Before and after the onetime ménage with Kurt and his wife, Dax had known how much he wanted Krista, and how utterly he’d failed to drive out his forbidden lust with other women. If he spoke with her now, he’d hear the ache of loss in her soft voice and be tempted to pull her into a consoling embrace, something he’d managed to avoid doing the past several months as he and other hospital employees took turns visiting their home and offering their assistance as the couple struggled with Kurt’s disease. After what Dax had done, the role he had played that led up to them standing in this cemetery over Kurt Matthews’s grave, he didn’t have the right to offer Krista comfort of any kind. Worse, he knew from past experience, touching her would result in unleashing his dominant cravings in a way he’d never experienced with another submissive woman.
“Yea, though I walk through the shadow of the valley of death; I will fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”
Despite the pleasant seventy-five degree Miami temperature, sweat trickled down his back. As the minister wrapped up the service, Dax found no comfort in the standard prayer. The questions that plagued him about his friend’s death may never be answered, and that would be his cross to bear. A hand landed on his shoulder and squeezed, drawing his attention away from the ornate, walnut casket to his best friend Sean’s concerned grey eyes.
“You’re not going to offer any psychology platitudes, are you?” Dax, Sean and his five other close friends came from troublesome childhoods that had landed the seven of them in a summer camp for juvenile delinquents during their teens. Even though the psychologist meant well with his mothering, the shrink’s habit of constantly watching for signs one of them was struggling with past mistakes and tragedies could be annoying.
“Just reminding you we’re all here for you before we take off. Are you going to go to the house, pay your respects to the widow?” Sean asked.
Dax had been pleasantly surprised to see his friends at the funeral, the silent way they joined him for the service then came out here for the burial site eulogy a balm to his tortured conscience. But he was glad they weren’t following him to Kurt’s home. As close as the seven of them were, as well as they knew each other, one or more would be bound to notice his internal struggle when he could no longer avoid offering condolences to Kurt’s widow. He had to keep thinking of Krista in those terms to keep her at the arm’s length he needed her to be, where his conscience demanded she stayed.
“Yes. I won’t remain long as there’s a lot of family here. I plan on giving her your card. She may need someone who understands, since she lost her Master along with her husband.”
“You could help her there, eventually.”
“No, I can’t, and don’t ask me why. Thanks for coming.” Turning to face the others, Dax included Zach, Miles, Jackson, and the Carlson brothers in his appreciation. “It means a lot, you guys coming today. Kurt was a friend as well as an associate. He’ll be missed.”
“We’ll get together soon, poker or a play party, your choice,” Jackson suggested as the crowd started to disperse, and Dax saw Krista’s black-clad, slender form walking toward the limousine.
“Sounds good. Thanks, guys.”
Pulling up in front of the Matthews home fifteen minutes later, Dax opted to park in front of the white-brick ranch to keep from getting pinned in by other guests. Cutting the engine of his vintage Corvette convertible, he sat a moment, trying to get his act together before he entered the house where he’d had the most intense and satisfying sexual experience of his life. He cursed as he thought of the length of time since that one night, and the attempts he’d made to put distance between him and the one woman he couldn’t seem to forget.
But that night hadn’t been the first time he’d visited Kurt’s home, or walked out driven by an ache for his friend’s wife he couldn’t suppress. Like today, it had been a pleasant February afternoon when he’d stopped by with a CT scan of a patient they’d been conferring on, after calling ahead first to get his opinion on the best treatment plan. Stepping inside the sprawling house in the well-to-do neighborhood, he’d known Krista was Kurt’s wife, as well as the penchant for BDSM Dax and his colleague shared in common. What he hadn’t known was that the woman he continued to fantasize about every time she was assigned to assist him in the OR, relished living as her husband’s full-time submissive.
“Dax, come on in.” Dr. Kurt Matthews held his door open and Dax stepped inside, clutching the scan in his hand. A part of him knew this was a mistake. He found being in the same operating room with Krista Matthews difficult enough, seeing her in the home she shared with her husband would be tantamount to rubbing salt on an open wound, but he refused to let his libido get in the way of his job. Giving his patients the best care possible had always come first, which was why he had set aside his misgivings and phoned ahead to let Kurt know he needed a second opinion on William Henderson’s case.
“Thanks for making time to go over this with me, Kurt.” Handing him the medical report, Dax kept his eyes on his friend, resisting the urge to look around for Krista. “I’ve got him scheduled for a double bypass in two days, but now I’m debating over whether I should do a triple. I hate cases like this that could go either way, especially when it’s an eighty-two-year-old man with his history.”
“You can’t discount the risk of a major coronary on the table,” Kurt said, holding up the heart scan to the light as he walked into a great room. “Give me a minute here. Can I get you something? A beer?”
“I wouldn’t say no.” But I should, Dax thought when Kurt called out for his wife.
“Krista, bring us a couple of beers, please.”
There was a second of silence before her soft voice echoed with her reply. “Be right there, Sir.”
Shit. The title of respect she tacked on told Dax just how far the Matthews took their Dom/sub relationship, something he hadn’t considered when he’d decided to interrupt the weekend with work. Or had he suspected, and allowed curiosity and the non-stop growing desire for forbidden fruit to lead him here today? Dax didn’t care for that possibility. He didn’t cross certain lines when indulging in his dominant proclivities and wouldn’t start now, no matter how tempted. But the sight of Kurt’s wife entering the room wearing nothing but a thigh skimming, light blue shift and decorative, blue-suede collar almost coerced a rebuttal of that last thought from him.
He was no novice when it came to admiring a submissive woman, but his instant, adolescent physical response as he watched her pad across the hardwood floor and saw her in something other than baggy, hospital scrubs for the first time, made him feel like one. What sane man could look away from those slender legs or the pierced nipples easily seen through the sheer garment?
“Pretty, isn’t she?” Kurt asked, bending to kiss her as she handed one of the beers to Dax.
“Very. Thank you, Krista.” He took the bottle from her slender hand, their fingers skimming before he pulled back as if burned. Her blue eyes widened, as if the friction had shocked her also, before she lowered them in deference to her role in the household.
“Sit down a minute, Dax.” Kurt settled in a wide recliner and, as if it was the most natural thing for her to do, Krista knelt at his feet, sitting back on her heels and lacing her fingers together behind her.
The position pushed her chest out, stretching the thin material against the metal loops adorning her nipples. A pretty blush stole up her neck and spread over her face as she widened her knees, and the short slip rode up far enough to reveal an enticing glimpse of denuded, plump folds.
Perfect. That was the only thought in Dax’s head as he tilted the cold bottle up to his mouth and relished the relief rushing down his dry throat. For months, he’d been wondering what it was about this one unattainable woman that he found more appealing than any other who had crossed his path in the fifteen plus years he’d been indulging in a BDSM lifestyle. Then she looked up at her husband. A search for approval accompanied the eagerness to please suffused on her face and went with the love shining in her bright blue eyes. She’d glowed with that same look when Kurt had first introduced her as his wife, just minutes after Dax had decided to break his rule about not dating co-workers and planned to ask her out—an expression every dominant man strove to produce on their submissive.
Dax had only himself to blame for succumbing to temptation six months later, and if he had it to do all over again, he would refuse Kurt’s invitation to gift his wife with a ménage for her twenty-eighth birthday. That night may not have been the first time he’d had the pleasure of seeing the dark-haired, full-time submissive all but naked and on her knees, but it had been the one and only time he’d touched that soft, alabaster skin, felt the pillowy cushion of her lips wrapped around his cock, and heard her mewls of pleasure as she climaxed. He had to admit, though, that first time he’d seen her had packed almost as big of a wallop to his dominant libido as the few times he’d spotted the couple at the new BDSM club, Chains, since then, and the one time he’d caved to his desire and fucked her.
“Do you have plans tomorrow night?” Kurt asked Dax as they changed out of their scrubs in the doctors’ locker room.
Tired after the twelve-hour day he’d put in, Dax answered with an absent-minded reply. “Not yet. I’m just glad I’m not on call this weekend. You?”
“I made sure I wasn’t put on the rotation. It’s Krista’s birthday and I want to surprise her with something different.”
Dax’s gut clenched, like it always did whenever Kurt talked about his wife. “You’ve been together for a while. I’m surprised there’s still anything left for you two to try.” That was a lie, as there would always be something new with a woman like Krista, but he had to do something to dampen his interest, didn’t he?
“Yeah, I’m a lucky bastard. She not only loves me despite our twenty-year age difference, but she’s the sub I’d all but given up hope of ever finding. Which is why I want to give back to her with a ménage tomorrow night. But in private, at our home, not the club. You in?”
Because of how badly he wanted to say yes, Dax hedged. He’d been trying to fuck out the image of Krista kneeling as Kurt’s submissive for months now, and nothing and no one had worked. He knew if he touched her, there would be no way to get over his unholy obsession. Kurt must’ve seen the denial on his face as he paused, because he stripped Dax of his refusal before he could even come up with one.
“I wouldn’t trust my wife’s well-being or her pleasure to anyone but you. I know your reputation, Dax, and I think she’ll be comfortable with you, more so now that she’s assigned only to the orthopedic cases.”
Dax had been both relieved and disappointed over Krista’s promotion to first-scrub on the orthopedic team. He rarely saw her now, and then just in passing. Out-of-sight-out-of-mind had been working to assist him in getting his priorities straight and his dick under control, and now this. But he couldn’t let Kurt disappoint Krista, or risk asking someone who would take advantage of her willingness to please.
Knowing it would be yet another mistake, but unable to stop himself, Dax agreed. “I’ll be there. What time?”
“Thanks. See you at eight?”
“That works.”
Dax had no one but himself to blame for getting in over his head. As he parked in the Matthews’ circular drive the next evening, he’d had twenty-four hours to change his mind and come up with an excuse not to show up tonight. His blood rushed through his veins, spiking his adrenaline as he walked up to the front door. Mistake or not, right or wrong, he couldn’t turn down this chance to be included in giving Krista a special birthday treat. Following Kurt’s invitation to enter, he strolled into the large den thinking he was prepared to see her in her submissive role again. He was wrong.
Krista knelt on the braided throw rug in the middle of the room, naked, with her wrists bound together between her breasts and attached to her collar. Dax tamped down the compulsion to stride over and lay claim to her. Not mine, he reminded himself as Kurt entered from the hall carrying a multi-strand flogger.
“There you are.” A look of relief passed over the other man’s face, making Dax wonder if he’d thought he wouldn’t show.
“Sorry I’m a little late. Your sub looks pretty in that pose.”
“She’s attractive in whatever position I instruct.” Kurt ran his hand down her long, mahogany hair, this time a flicker of profound sadness flashing in his eyes. “I thought we’d start with a little warm-up. She likes a touch of pain, don’t you, sweetie?”
“Yes, Master.” The small smile trembling on those lush lips stirred Dax’s imagination as he pictured them wrapped around his engorged flesh.
“She might need a little assistance with balance,” Kurt prodded.
“Wouldn’t want her toppling over, would we?” Dax strode over to the couple and clasped Krista’s smooth, round shoulders in his large hands, tightening them just enough to exert his authority. She whipped drenched blue eyes up to him, her pale cheeks turning pink as her husband snapped the flogger across her ass.
“Eyes on me, little one,” Dax instructed when she closed her lids. Small white teeth bit into her lower lip as she gazed up at him, her slim body jerking with the next slash. Her berry nipples tightened around the dainty gold hoop piercings, and he couldn’t resist releasing one shoulder to flick them. Her quick, indrawn breath could’ve been from the stroke of leather against her ass again, or the way he pinched one nipple between thumb and forefinger.
Tearing his eyes away from her attractive, expressive face, he encountered Kurt’s knowing look. “You’ve noticed how responsive she is.”
“Hard not to,” Dax said.
“One more, Krista.” Kurt aimed the flogger at her quivering thighs, drawing a low moan before tossing it aside and reaching for his zipper. “She likes it all ways, so I’ll give you a choice between her mouth or pussy. I’m in an ass mood tonight.”
Dax feared dipping inside that damp pussy this early would be his undoing for the night, so opted for using her mouth. Maintaining his strained control, with those blue eyes pinned up at him as he felt her pouty lips wrapped around his hot flesh, would be difficult enough. Trailing his hand up her neck, he pressed his thumb against her soft, plush, lower lip, then almost came undone when she flicked her small tongue over the fleshy pad.
“Be careful, Mrs. Matthews,” he warned, using her title as a reminder to himself that she would still be off-limits after tonight. Unzipping his loose, summer khakis, he let his thick cock spring into his hand and he gripped the hot, steel-rod of flesh with his left as he stroked down to her damp labia with his right. “It’s a good thing I’m ambidextrous, isn’t it?”
Krista nodded, her eyes lighting with excitement as he spread her slippery folds. It was Kurt’s turn to cup her shoulder, bracing her for the invasion of two lubed fingers. Entering simultaneously, they filled her two orifices to the hilt, her small whimper and reddening face beautiful to hear and see. She held her pose like a pro as they treated her to a rigorous finger-fucking. Thrusting in tandem with Kurt, Dax worked her vagina as he stroked his dick, building heat in both sexual organs until they threatened to singe his hand and fingers. Through it all, her eyes remained on his, her look conveying a need he couldn’t pinpoint yet, but he would.
“Krista has a tendency to push buttons when she’s in one of her needy moods.” Kurt smiled at Dax over his wife’s kneeling posture. “She’s generous to a fault at putting my desires before or above her own, but occasionally her mischievous streak takes over. After two years of marriage, it challenges me to come up with ways to torture her delectable body.”
“You’re a lucky man.” Dax spread his fingers inside her snug sheath, stretching the muscles and adding a bite of discomfort. He could feel Kurt doing the same through the thin layer of tissue separating them. She moaned, thrusting her hips forward, and earned a sharp slap from her husband.
“Be still and tell Dr. Hayes how much you’re enjoying his fingers in your cunt,” Kurt ordered.
Krista’s pink face turned a darker red, but Dax thought the deeper flush was due more to escalating arousal than embarrassment. “Thank you, Doctor. I—” She ended on a sharp cry when he tugged on her clit, his intention to stop her from verbalizing her appreciation. He didn’t want or deserve gratitude for participating in giving her pleasure tonight. If she knew how much he wanted this—and her—she most likely would have refused this birthday present. From what he could tell, the twenty-year difference in their ages hadn’t stood in the way of her constant devotion to her spouse.
“You’re welcome, and happy birthday, Krista.” Keeping his fingers embedded inside her, Dax thrust the seeping crown of his cock against her lips. Those bright blue eyes lit up with pleasure as she opened her mouth. “Sorry, Kurt, I can’t wait forever for you.”
“No sweat, I’m on board.”
Kurt entered her back channel with a slow push as Dax slid past her lips and her warm, damp mouth took him in. She closed her eyes at the dual penetration, her slender frame shuddering in delicate acceptance of their possession. He didn’t reprimand her, figuring she needed a moment to adjust to this new experience. If she were his sub, he’d have the option, and pleasure, of punishing her later, but she wasn’t, and he didn’t. Besides that, her face suffused with bliss as soon as she opened for him, her look one of total concentration on servicing rather than on receiving. One fucking big turn-on.
Dax’s abdominals tightened into a solid knot with that thought, and an urgency to end this as strong as the desire to take part took hold. Torture, that’s what her silken mouth, soft lips and stroking tongue felt like as she laved his girth with damp caresses around and around, then, as he pulled back, up and down. Her lips compressed around his root, her cheeks going hollow as she sucked even harder against his withdrawal, that appearance of deep, concentrated pleasure damn near ball-busting.
“Shit, you could’ve warned me how good she is at giving head,” he growled, flipping his friend a stern look. “Your fault if I don’t wait for you.”
“Krista, do not come until I say. If you do, you’ll get five strokes with the cane.”
Her shudder and the quick way her rosy face paled told Dax how much that threat worried her. “Not a fan of the cane, I assume?”
“She’ll take it if I’m in the mood, but I save it to use as leverage as she enjoys everything else too much.” The first part of his reply was another hint Krista was a sub who ached to please, the second part was responsible for the wicked twinkle in Kurt’s eyes that held a wealth of pleasure over her acceptance of his other, punishing tools.
Picturing the different implements available to torment a sub’s ass with urged Dax to fuck her mouth faster. Still working her pussy, Kurt’s deep, pummeling thrusts added to the pleasurable torture they heaped upon her. Her berry nipples had darkened to a crimson hue and her cream gushed over his fingers, proof of how much servicing their two cocks excited her. A fucking wet dream. Desperate now for both relief and to put space between him and an unattainable temptation, Dax commanded an end to her tortuous teasing.
“Suck me, Krista.”
He almost withdrew that order when she pulled up with a tight draw, her tongue tracing over rigid veins, setting off hot licks of pleasure that threatened to sear his shaft. He noticed Kurt tightening his hold on her shoulder as his surges into her ass increased. Her eyes flew open when Dax’s cock jerked, then filled with satisfaction and longing when she stroked under the rim of his head and pressed her tongue against the most sensitive area on a man’s penis. Gritting his teeth, he released the base of his cock and reached behind her head to grip her hair.
“Now,” Dax snapped, his tone a guttural whiplash. Keeping her head immobile, he fucked her mouth with steady dips, the slurping sounds from her busy tongue and lips drawing a smile of satisfaction from her husband he would later question. His balls drew taut and he could see the frustration crossing her face as she jerked her bound hands. She wanted to touch, but Dax was glad she couldn’t. He could only take so much. That fact proved true when she nipped at his flesh, tiny pinpricks of pain that forced his climax to erupt in a fierce torrent of heat.
Krista moaned, the low sound vibrating up and down his length as he rode out the pleasure, stilling his fingers inside her for a moment, just until he could get his bearings. Dimly, he heard Kurt’s shout of pleasure followed by the tight grips of her convulsing sheath around his fingers. Drifting down from the incredible high, he slid from her still suckling mouth, marveling at the way his and Kurt’s climaxes had seemed to set off her own.
Krista’s inner muscles continued to grip his fingers as she orgasmed, her keening cry shaking her entire body. Pearly drops of his come decorated the corners of her mouth. Eyes glazed, face flushed, she gazed up at him and licked them off. Hours later, that one expression on her face followed him home, and he knew he wouldn’t soon forget it.
Kurt’s diagnosis of ALS just a few weeks after that night had enabled Dax to keep up the friendly, supportive relationship at work he’d always enjoyed with Krista. But even knowing the hell in store for his friend, and watching the toll it took on her over the past year, he hadn’t been able to forget the sheer satisfaction of fucking her, or to stop from wanting her. Opening his car door, Dax slid out, shoving aside memories best shelved and forgotten. He’d pay his respects and pray he could keep his guilt well-hidden and his hands to himself. There would be no welcome here if Krista knew what he’d done, so it would be best all around if he stepped out of the picture after today. It would mean breaking his promise to Kurt, but better that than adding to the grief she already suffered. The tour with Doctors Without Borders Dax had signed on for would take him far away from temptation for a long enough time to hopefully earn forgiveness and, with any luck, give him a chance to get over the one woman he could never have.
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