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

been able to see or hear was him. His voice. His touch. The pain. And he’d driven her right to where he wanted her. Then humiliated her by making her orgasm. Her stomach clenched as she remembered the sleazy buyers leering at her. The slave next to her had stared, her face turning hard with a “how could you?” expression.
    And Sam—she hadn’t been able to read him at all. She sighed. She still couldn’t. Considering the way she’d reacted to him at the Shadowlands, he hadn’t lost his touch.
    She wished she could say she responded sexually to any Dom, but that wouldn’t be true. Sam had said they had chemistry between them. Then again, maybe it was just his lean, muscular body, sharp blue eyes, and aura of power that sparked her synapses into overdrive.
    Or the way he talked… She put her hand over the flutter in her stomach. The man should have a license to kill for that voice. So deep and rough, like a gravel truck churning at the bottom of a chasm, with a flintlike edge that indicated he didn’t take crap from anyone, especially a submissive.
    She snorted. She’d normally have a fit if some guy called her “girl,” but when Sam said it, every molecule in her body turned liquid. Damn him.
    Wiping her hands on a towel, she tried to consider what her next task should be. Having her thoughts fall into a Sam rut couldn’t be permitted. She couldn’t afford anything…warped…in her life. In her children’s lives.
    Brenna and Charles had told her about the horrible time they’d suffered after she’d been kidnapped. How they’d panicked when no one could find her. They’d been terrified for her. And then reporters had hounded them, playing on their fears, coming up with all the worst scenarios.
    How much worse would it be if the newspeople—or her children—learned she’d gone to a kink club?
    But everything was returning to normal. The trials for the slavers were almost over. Her coworkers would forget her past. Her children could relax. She’d never, ever do anything to cause a sensation again.
    She’d been Miss Boring and Respectable all her life, and being different had really not gone well.
    After tossing the soiled towel in the laundry basket, she walked out the front door into the fresh air. She did that a lot—just to prove she could go outside when she wanted to. Typical ex-prisoner behavior.
    In her yard, she inhaled slowly. Nothing smelled as good as the breeze off the ocean. The sky was a deep blue with puffy clouds white enough for a bleach commercial. Spring was coming, but this was the prettiest time of the year. The St. Augustine grass was crisp and bright. In a garish flash of color, a flock of feral parakeets settled onto the next-door lawn. She grinned at them.
    The counselor had said her emotions would go up and down, but duh—that wasn’t exactly news to anyone over twenty. One moment, a person celebrates a pregnancy, and the next, a father dies. A windfall of cash might be followed by a broken arm. Learn to stand up. Learn to fall down . Life’s lessons didn’t stop; they continued to the day of death.
    And I’m alive . That was the important thing. Alive and free and… She stared at her house. To the right of the door, black words had been spray-painted over the pale blue wall: BURN IN HELL WHORE OF SATAN.
    No. No no no . Her stomach roiled. Hand over her mouth, she ran for the house.
    * * * *
    Almost two hours later, she had sung every war song she knew as she scrubbed off the graffiti. Once finished, she frowned at the areas of lighter blue. Why in the world would someone do something like that? Whore of Satan. Excuse me?
    Now that the words were gone, she could almost see the humor. It sounded like what her father—may he rest in peace—would roar during his pulpit-thumping sermons. “And if you do not repent of your evil ways, then you will—”
    He’d considered the road to salvation to be extremely narrow. A good person needed faith, to do charitable works, to