In the Zone by Sierra Cartwright Page A

questions.”
    “Duty calls,” Marcus said. He pushed away his half-finished beer.
    “Don’t send home any more of our employees,” AJ said, grabbing his glass. “And give me a chance to beat them first.” He wandered over to another table to say hello.
    Marcus clapped Nathaniel on the shoulder. “You did okay.”
    Fortunately the rest of the evening went well. The club’s other professional submissives were able to handle Alani’s clients, and no money had to be refunded.
    The next day, he lifted some weights, then went for a five-mile run. He debated whether to call her but decided to spend a couple of hours at the outdoor shooting range first. He told himself he needed to keep his skills sharp.
    Truthfully, he needed the time as waking meditation. His thoughts bothered him, and he had no idea what to do with Alani.
    Women didn’t perplex him. Or they hadn’t, until last night.
    His scene with Alani had been powerful.
    Being deliberate, watching her reactions, demanding her orgasm, even holding her afterward had fulfilled something inside him.
    And for the first time, he was left wanting more.
    She’d been honest in her reactions, and he wondered how much deeper it could go. He wanted to provide the satisfaction she craved.
    He’d had a hard-on since he left the club. She’d begged him to fuck her. He’d wanted to, but he’d always believed restraint was the better part of valor. He rarely mixed punishment and sex, but last night he’d been close to demolishing his personal boundaries.
    Even though Nathaniel rarely showed up at Zones, he was still an owner. He’d made it clear that what happened between him and Alani was separate from her employment, and as Marcus had pointed out, there wasn’t a specific policy against fraternization.
    Still, common sense told him to turn Alani over to AJ or one of the club’s professional doms for retraining, but he couldn’t. Now that his belt had been on her skin and his mouth had been on her pussy, she was his.
    He wanted her.
    She was his.
    The rational part of his mind recognized that she had some say in the matter. The dominant part of him wanted to give her no choice.
    After a long, hot shower, he called her.
    She answered on the fourth ring, just as he was wondering if she intended to send him to voice mail.
    “ Mahalo. ”
    Her voice sounded unhurried. If she was nervous, her tone didn’t betray it.
    Suddenly he remembered the way her voice sounded last night, breathless as she begged for his belt. “Meet me at the club half an hour before your shift starts,” he told her. It was only a few hours before she was due at Zones, so that meant she had little time to prepare.
    “I thought you were giving me the day off to think. ”
    The hint of anger in her voice was more like he expected. “I’ve changed my mind, Alani. We need to talk privately.”
    “This is private—”
    “Was my order unclear, sub?”
    “No, Sir.”
    Without giving her another moment to argue, he hung up. He needed to shove a gag in her mouth. Or his dick.
    Nathaniel dressed. When he threaded his belt through the loops on his slacks, he thought of the leather kissing her bronzed skin. He wondered if her ass had any red marks. Likely it didn’t. He hadn’t hit her that hard.
    If he gave her what they both wanted, that would no doubt change. Maybe as soon as tonight.
    He drove to the club from his rented home in Lakewood on the west side of the metro Denver area. Nathaniel had never put down roots; truthfully, he’d never wanted to. He’d been a military kid. A lot of people he knew didn’t like the vagabond lifestyle. He couldn’t imagine living any other way. The longest lease he’d ever signed had been on a storage unit. He liked the flexibility of walking away when necessary and of having the option of calling anywhere home. Sometimes it was Colorado; once it had been Alaska. After the heat of the Middle East, he’d wanted something different. Nome had been cold and