Page 18 of Friends with Benefits (Club Risqué)

She probably would have done it for free…and that was exactly why the lifestyle was good for her. It stopped her from spending too much time, doing too many things, for too many people who would just take advantage of her willing nature.

Because as much as Trinity gained pleasure from serving others, it was incredibly soul destroying to constantly be giving, without any gratitude in return.

Now that Trinity understood that about herself, she was able to protect herself from some of the inevitable pitfalls of her innate character.

Here and now, at least, she knew she was valued. And that gave her all she needed from life.

A new life where she knew her worth, and lived only for herself.

ChapterThirteen

Present day

Trinity touched her fingers to her cheek and realised she was crying.

It had been a long time since she had allowed her thoughts and memories of Christian to disrupt the new life she’d carved out for herself.

Taking a deep breath, she brushed the back of her hand across her face to remove the evidence of her tears and blinked a couple of times to clear her blurry eyes.

Damn him anyway. She'd managed just fine without him and if she was a little warier in her relationships these days, then it was because she had learned her lesson well.

To be fair, she was as much to blame as Christian had ever been.

More so, in fact.

She'd allowed the relationship to evolve the way it had, never once being honest with him about the way she felt and what she truly wanted from him, whereas Christian had always been completely upfront about his own requirements.

Well, except in the bedroom, it seemed.

And she'd come to learn a lot of things about herself, including, ironically, that there was a classification for someone with her particular character traits. In the very same lifestyle Christian had chosen for himself no less:Service submissive, someone who had the type of compliant nature where they found their greatest pleasure in serving others and making their lives easier by providing whatever help they could.

For Trinity, that meant fulfilling their every kinky desire as well.

Although she usually drew the line at intercourse, she was happy enough to bring them to completion in other ways. There was more than one way to skin a cat after all, and she was an expert at most of them.

She couldn't say why she kept sex on her soft limits. It wasn't as if she never indulged, she was just…cautious…if that was even the right term.

She didn't want meaningless intercourse with the host of men she routinely played with at Club Risqué. And any true connoisseur of the lifestyle knew there was much more to BDSM than an orgy of sex.

But despite being a service submissive, she liked her interactions to have a higher value than simply being used as a vessel for a man to get off.

Hmph! Maybe that was a throwback to how Christian had made her feel after all. She'd never scrutinised her feelings on the matter too closely.

She had refused. Gathering them up and blocking them off, dumping them all in a box to which she had hammered the lid tightly closed.

ChapterFourteen

The following day at work, Trinity was suffering a low-grade headache that she couldn't seem to shake, and she knew it was because of the emotions stirred up by the traumatic recollections the day before.

It was the first time in years she’d cried over her past, and Trinity had suffered a seriously restless night as a result.

She was finding it difficult to concentrate when Micah came into her office and frowned at the sight of her.

"You look awful!" he said bluntly. "Are you ill?" He stalked over, in what Trinity silently referred to as the 'Dom strut' that many of the club's Masters seemed to have perfected, and tested her forehead with his palm.

"Thanks!" Trinity replied drily, leaning away from him and concentrating on her computer screen. "Your flattery knows no limits, and no, I'm not ill. I just had a disturbed night."

"Why did you have a bad night? Do you think you're coming down with something?" he persevered. Despite being a Dom, Micah was a nurturer, first and foremost.

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