The Runaway Sub [Libertine Island 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) by Diane Leyne Page B

their issues and were now about to tie the knot as well as do a formal collaring ceremony afterward.
    Jen was looking forward to it.
    And it was funny, she realized. When she was with Hank and heavily involved in the lifestyle, she’d hidden it from her friends, afraid of being judged. Over time, she’d run into Max periodically at clubs, so she knew he was in the lifestyle, but neither Aly nor Rebecca had ever expressed any interest and now they both had permanent Doms.
    She couldn’t help but be a little envious. She and Hank had been so happy together. She’d almost worked up the courage to tell her friends that Hank wasn’t just her boyfriend, but her Master, when a drunk driver ended his life. The pain she’d felt had been so strong that she didn’t know, at first, if she could go on without him. He’d been her life. But he wouldn’t have wanted her to stop living because he was gone. He’d loved her strength and had encouraged her to follow her dream to become a lawyer and had ordered her to return to school to get her law degree. He may have wanted a slave sexually, but in all other facets of life, he wanted a strong partner. So she’d graduated, but she had changed her major to corporate law. She had wanted something dispassionate. She didn’t want to have to deal with people and their problems. She wanted do research and then give logical, reasoned, compelling arguments in the courtroom. And she’d succeeded beyond her wildest dreams, but it wasn’t satisfying.
    When she’d encouraged Aly to team up with Max and go undercover as a sub, it was partially to help her friends get back together, but she had to acknowledge that it was also partially to be able to live vicariously. She missed having a Master to come home to, someone who would sooth away the stress of the day, flogging it out of her if he had to until all the worry and stress just slipped away and all she could do was feel as he fucked her six ways to Sunday, and she came over and over and over.
    And usually he trussed her up so thoroughly that she couldn’t even move, and it was heaven. She was his, and she trusted him absolutely. Hank may have been a bit of a sadist, but she was a bit of a masochist, so she needed some pain. She knew that while he might push her limits, he would never give her more than she could handle. They’d been perfect together from day one, and she had thought that they would grow old together.
    But he’d been gone for five years, five years that she’d been existing, not living. Gone was the free spirit who had been going to change the world, and in her place was an automaton who went to work and home and out with friends, but just felt like she was going through the motions. She’d tried dating after a few years. She’d dated vanilla, but could barely work up the enthusiasm to even kiss them good night. She’d gone to the clubs. A couple of times a year she’d gone to a Master she trusted, such as Jake at Club Libertine in Seattle, to feel the physical pain she needed to feel in her body in order to release the pain she felt emotionally. She never had sex with the Masters she played with. She went to them for the physical release that pain could give her, but that hadn’t been enough lately.
    Quitting her job had felt freeing and had been the scariest thing she’d ever done. But it was the right thing. And now she was going to do another scary thing. She was going to let Caleb flog her tonight and then make love to her. He was the first man that she really felt she could care about, and the fact that he was gay and probably just experimenting scared her. She knew that a relationship with him probably wasn’t in the cards, but it seemed to be something that, right now, they both wanted and needed. It would help heal them both, so it would be a good thing.
    Whenever she looked over at him, Caleb was staring at her, studying her, his expression serious. He smiled when she caught his eye, and she shivered.