Page 13 of Masters of Play

It was in that space of sub drop that I didn't care to be around others. I preferred to regain my equilibrium in private, or with my girls. Something about the Carson boys had always made me feel comfortable enough to rest in their care after they made me fly.

When I opened my eyes, I was wrapped up in something soft and warm. Well, mostly soft. More warm than anything. There were some hard planes there. And the planes smelled good. Like pine and chocolate and man.

I lifted one eyelid halfway to see that I was in fact wrapped up in a man. I was lying in Owen's lap. One of his muscled arms cradled my head. The other rested over my abdomen.

There was a phone in his hand. The colorful flashing lights caught my eyes. He was playing Candy Crush.

I was momentarily distracted by the game. The simplicity of it—matching three colored sweets in a row to achieve higher and then higher levels. It was satisfying to watch the reds and blues and yellow get placed together and disappear. But that's the draw of the game.

"Score!" said Owen as he squeezed the phone in one hand and my shoulder with his other hand. "I achieved the next level."

I shifted my body to look up into his eyes.

"You looked worried," he said, gazing down at me. "I always have a plan."

"It's not your plan. It's theirs. The makers of that game are using a tactic called a variable ratio schedule of reinforcement to engage the dopamine centers of your brain. They get you addicted to winning in the beginning, but it gets increasingly harder as you go on. It's the same tactic used to keep people at slot machines."

Owen put his phone down and picked up one of the locks of my hair. "Is that so?"

I was distracted watching him loop my hair around his index finger. He twined it tightly. So tightly that it drained the red from the tip of his finger.

"That's an interesting theory, Dr. Prince." Owen leaned in close until his lips touched the cone of my ear, making me shiver. "I think there's a little red cherry somewhere between your legs. Wanna see how many times I can tap it before it explodes?"

I giggled. I actually fucking giggled.

Owen had always been so easy to be around, so easy to let my guard down in front of. He was the one who always gave me exactly what I wanted in a scene without making me wait or beg for it.

Right now, he was letting my hair unravel from his fingertip. That finger traced down my forearm. The coldness from loss of blood left the tip as it trailed down my warm flesh, heading farther and farther south.

"Don't you have more sessions?" I asked.

"You were our last one. You usually are."

"I am?"

Owen nodded as his finger slipped beneath the blanket he'd wrapped me up in. "Because of the aftercare."

"I didn't ask for aftercare. You don't have to—"

"Not your aftercare. Mine."

His arms didn't tighten around me. In fact, he relaxed. Owen slouched down into the back of the couch, allowing my body to slip farther between his open legs and allowing space to farther part my thighs.

"I'm your aftercare?" I asked.

Again, Owen nodded. "I like talking to you after I'm done working. I like hearing about your theories and your studies. I like talking about the psychology behind my kinkery and why I like to tie people up. Did I tell you that when I played soldiers as a kid, I always got the most satisfaction when I tied my action figures up?"

"Yes, you did tell me that."

Owen's fingers found the elastic of my panties. Instead of moving the fabric to the side, he traced it along the length of my abdomen.

"That means my problems likely stem from adolescence, right?" he said. "It's my parents' fault that I'm this way?"

"There's nothing wrong with you, Owen."

"No?" He ran his fingertip just beneath the elastic of my panties. "Even though I like a woman to be helpless and immobile when I fuck her?"

"A lot of women fantasize about being forced into submission."

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