Page 49 of Taming His Teacher

I shake my head, hard, making myself dizzy in the process. “No.”

“Have you ever— With Will, did you…”

“No!” Relief washes some of the tension off his face. “Would it matter to you if I had?”

“No. Christ, no, Erin. That would be insanely hypocritical. No, I just want to know where we’re starting from.”

Fingers of warmth clutch at my insides.Where we’re starting from?We’re starting something? He wants me?

“Will you tell me more? Now that you know you’re not going to make me run screaming for the hills?”

“Yeah, of course. But could you put those away? They’re distracting.”

I can imagine. Some of the covers are rather…explicit. I gather up my books and bring them back to their hiding place. When I come out, Shep’s got the kettle on for tea.

“Sit,” he instructs. “On the couch, not on the floor.”

I do as I’m told, and wrap the blanket around myself before he comes back with two steaming mugs and settles next to me.

“After a while, some of the members started asking if I was available to play.”

I’d bet so.

“At first Mordecai said no, I was new and I was off-limits. But he had a few service tops and bottoms on staff and I thought maybe he’d give me a shot sometime. It took over a year. I’d resigned myself to doing everything but. But then, one night one of our best members showed up—this woman named Lydia, and she wanted to play. One of the club tops had called in sick, the other one was booked solid and Lydia didn’t like to play with other members. She told Mordecai she wanted me or she was walking. He offered to top her himself, and he didn’t usually play with members, but she refused. ‘Give me The Shepherd or I’m gone.’”

“They called you The Shepherd?” It’s like something out of my books. The guys with the trying-super-hard-to-be-badass names like Whip Cock and Master Ass Daddy make me cringe. But, The Shepherd. It’s silly, but fitting. Controlling but caretaking. I bite my lip so I don’t laugh because he looks embarrassed.

“Yeah. Mordecai introduced me to the staff as Shepherd and one of the club bottoms liked to give me a hard time about how badly I wanted to top. She called me that as a joke, but it stuck. I guess it could’ve been worse, but, god.”

“So you played with her? Lydia?”

“I did. Mordecai asked me first. He wouldn’t have made me if I didn’t want to, even though it would have meant losing her and maybe a couple of her friends who were members, too.”

“But you wanted to.”

He shrugs.

“You did a good job?”

“Good enough she asked for me the next time she was in the club. Then other members started asking for me. Mordecai had to hire someone else for the door, but I still did the other stuff when I had time.”

He says it modestly, but I’m sure it was open season. Of course they wanted him.

“Did you like it?”

“A lot of it. I liked helping people relax, feel safe, forget about all the crap going on in their lives outside the club. I liked pushing their boundaries, showing them what they were capable of. I liked making them feel good, sending them home at the end of the night knowing I’d made their lives a little better.”

“You keep saying ‘people.’ Did you play with men, too?”

“Occasionally. They tended to prefer one of our female tops or this guy Anton. But if they requested me I wouldn’t say no.”

“Did you have sex with them?”

“No, no sex. With anyone. Against club rules. We could use whatever house toys and restraints the client okayed, but no sex. And no fingers inside a client.”

“Wasn’t that…frustrating?”

He laughs. “Uh, yeah. Very frustrating.”

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