Page 11 of Bound and Branded

And it’s an equalizer. Which I also value. Because I like a hard-core game, and I like to push power dynamics to the limit. Which means I need a woman who can come to me on equal footing. Another reason that Avery is never going to be that woman.

She’s fifteen years younger than me and I own her family at this point. Even though I’ve never intended to keep it all for myself.

I’m keeping it safe for her. Because her dad is just going to keep frittering it all away, and she’s going to keep working herself to the bone, and for fucking what?

Once I realized how in deep her dad was, I started buying up acreage to hold it. She’s been pissed about it, but it suits me to let her be. Because again, it keeps her well away from me.

I’m too old for her, too kinky for her, and honest to God, too fucked up.

But I’m drawn to her. Hell, if I thought that I had a real heart I might even say that I’m in love with her.

I don’t know what love is, and I’m pretty sure my version of it is… Well, it’sthis, which is fucked. Let’s be real.

I removed myself yesterday from the house because watching her serve me like that was going to push me to close to the edge.

What I need to do is get this little sub I have on the hook on The Club app to commit.

Normally I cast a wide net. I’ve flown women in from other cities to join me here in Oregon so that I can get what I need while I’m here on the ranch. But on a whim I decided to see who might be on the app here.

The pickings are slim.

A couple of Femme Dommes, one looking for men or women, one just looking for women, and another Dom. But no subs to be seen.

Until she popped up. I’d looked at her profile as soon as her name appeared.

Dove.

The name had brought something vulnerable and soft to mind. Something that needed to be protected. Cared for. That’s not really my thing. But there was something about the image that works for me. I’d clicked her profile and seen that she was a brand-new sub who’d never done anything in the lifestyle before and needed training.

I won’t lie, I like that sometimes. What I’ve learned about the world is that people are always going to fucking disappoint you. Every connection is temporary. Nothing is permanent, nothing is real.

I’ve never even come close to having an actual relationship. I’ve never had a sub that was actually mine for more than a pre-agreed to, short length of time.

But what I like about training new ones is that I’ll always be their first. I’ll always be the one who put them in touch with the thing that really turns them on, and there’s something that appeases me. Maybe because I spent my childhood getting bounced from foster home to foster home, knowing that my shitty behavior was the only thing that was ever going to make me memorable. And I did my best to be memorable.

But I can make myself memorable to a sub in a whole different way.

Yeah, I need that, because I’m playing a dangerous game with Avery. A game that I told myself I wasn’t going to play.

What I absolutely know is that when she shows up at the house I need to make myself scarce. The idea of watching her drop to her knees and clean the floor for me is too hot. It’s playing too close to the edge of what I actually want. And as much as part of me likes the idea of getting a small hit of what it would be like to have her submission, the rest of me knows better than to play those games.

I’m not an inexperienced asshole. I know the rules. I’m an expert at my craft.

And I don’t put women into BDSM scenarios without their explicit consent.

All the better to be able to go as hard as I want once we have the rules established.

But I do have to give her instructions first.

That thought is like a knife blade sliding under my skin, far too close to the bone.

I put it to the side as soon as I hear her truck pull into the driveway and I go to the front door, making sure that I’m standing out on the porch by the time she gets out of her vehicle.

“Good morning,” she says. She doesn’t meet my gaze.

I don’t need her to. I have all of her neat features memorized. Her eyes a whiskey color, her hair dark brown, straight and shiny. Today she has it in two braids that make my hands itch.

I could grab hold of both and pull hard, forcing her head back as I…

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