Page 7 of At Her Will

“Learning disability?”

“According to Witford, no. I’ve tried to get deeper into it, but Rev just thanks me for my concern and tells me if he’s not worried about it, I shouldn’t be, either. He doesn’t volunteermuch on his thoughts about himself. When you talk to Rev, he always manages to get the conversation back to you, or someone he’s concerned about. In a school our size, there’s always someone.

“Witford told me Rev was a hard worker, and I’d never regret hiring him. Both things are an understatement, but it doesn’t really cover it. Some things… It’s better to get to know him. It’s too difficult to describe, what it is about Rev.”

Vera frowned. “There’s more you’re not telling me. You’re holding back.”

“I’m telling you more than I’d tell anyone else. I want to respect the man’s privacy.” Her tone became lighter. “He handles himself well enough around women, always very courteous, but if they get forward, he backs off fast, like they’re a salesperson who showed up at his door with an offer that doesn’t interest him. He politely declines, steps back in and shuts the door. He has an remarkable level of self-possession.”

Vera heard a voice in the background, probably Mavis’s secretary. “Yes, I’ll handle it,” Mavis said. “I better go, Vera. I’ll expect an answer to that question during our lunch. About why you’re interested.”

“I might have one by then,” Vera said. “Talk to you later.”

The carriage turned off, and the Aston Martin purred onward, into the Garden District, where Thomas Rose Associates had their offices.

After she parked in the back lot of the former antebellum home, she took the side stairwell entrance. It allowed her to walk the path through the landscaping, under the wide arms of live oaks that had stood for several centuries. The everblooming azaleas were thick with deep red and clean white blooms. Statues and fountains were bordered by beds of flowers that thrived in the humid Southern environment, and benchesscattered throughout the area allowed employees the option of taking their lunch or working on their laptops outside.

The discovery of an intriguing man had given Vera a sense of anticipation. The beauty and comfort of familiar surroundings fed it.

She paused at the statue of a dancing girl, placed on a pedestal in one of the fountains. The water splashed off her flowing skirt, long hair and arched back, elegant hands lifted to the sky. It was a newer piece, one Vera had found and added to the garden. She’d discovered it soon after Cyn and Mick had gotten together.

It was a reminder of what she’d told herself earlier today. Though the years were passing, her soul was still dancing. The important things in life would happen as were meant to happen.

Even if they were never meant to happen at all.

Damn it all, wisdom had taught her the cruel irony of human nature; the more a person had, the more room there was for such baseless melancholy, if one allowed it to creep inside and become a squatter there.

She would never be alone and unloved. Never. The women who managed TRA—Ros, Abby, Skye, Cyn and herself—cared for one another, and the men they’d bonded with felt the same way. If Ros wasn’t available, Lawrence would be just as quick to come to Vera’s aid, for whatever she needed. Same with Neil, Tiger and Mick, very capable males with a remarkable range of skills to offer, emotionally as well as physically. They were dedicated to serving their Mistresses. Even Neil, who was a Dom himself, but took care of Abby’s Domme-side needs in the way unique to them.

Vera knew she also shouldn’t let her wishes assign too much significance to a potentially short-term attraction. She was almost certain Rev was brand new to actively pursuing a submissive orientation. There was an innocence to that side ofhim, mixed with a curious maturity and level-headedness that Mavis had confirmed with the clues to his background. Self-possession. That was a good term for it.

Sometimes solving the puzzle was the peak for a Dominant and submissive relationship. Once it was fully explored, the interest waned, and they moved on. Him to the next step in his journey, as she moved on to her own.

She carried those thoughts up the stairs and into her office. After tucking her purse into the bottom drawer of her desk, she turned on her computer, and considered the day’s to-do list.

She had a lunch interview with a candidate for Cyn’s department, a marketing executive from Florida who was interested in joining the busy firm. His credentials looked good, and they’d already had several phone interviews. The face-to-face impression was the final step. After lunch, she needed to turn her attention to some client contracts.

But instead of getting right to her email and phone messages, she moved to the windows and looked at the grounds from this side. A couple of employees were working on their laptops in the shade of the oaks. Bastion, their indomitable office manager, was pacing along the iron fence, handling a phone call on his earpiece.

Courtesy was the reason he was as far from anyone else in the garden as he could get. He was smoking a cigarette. They all wanted him to quit, and he would do so, for short periods, but if something stressed him out, he’d pick up a pack again.

“Keeps me away from the beignets, Vera,” he’d told her, smacking his drum-tight ass. “Gotta keep this looking good for my pets.”

“Oh yeah,” Cyn had said, coming into the executive coffee room to get her fifth cup of the morning. She’d pulled an all- nighter for an account presentation. “Lung cancer is soooo sexy. That hacking cough gets me going.”

“That’s just an excuse,” Bastion told her. “You know I’m too much man for you.”

Cyn had scoffed. “No such thing.”

Vera studied Bastion as he pivoted and wrapped one large hand around the pineapple finial on the gate. He cocked a hip when he hooked one ankle over the other.

The man had disciplineanddrive, a Dom who preferred two subs at once, one male and one female. And he was a muscular god, so he had the discipline to routinely win the war with his emotionally-driven sweet tooth. He didn’t like to talk much about the things that stressed him out, and whatever it was usually passed in a day or two, but she’d keep an eye on him.

She thought about Cyn’s comment again.No such thing.But that had been before she’d met Mick, the man whowastoo much for her…in the exact right ways.

Vera knew so much about how love worked. She’d been there to see it grow, crest and die, and suck the joy out of her soul. She knew how hard the road back from that loss was.

She hadn’t let it make her bitter, or unwilling to take that road again. Mostly. But this morning she’d been reminded that when a woman met a man who unbalanced her, it could take over everything. All good sense was swept away in a tide of feeling, beyond her reach.

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