ReunionSubmission

JB
Brooks

Samantha runs into Simon, her infuriating, irresistible
high-school nemesis, at their reunion. Unbeknownst to Sam, he has been as obsessed
with her for the last ten years as she’s been with him. When he declares his
passion and demands she strip for him, she is forced to admit she might
actually
want
to obey. And she cannot resist his masterful advances.

A skilled and calculating Dom, he initiates her into an
erotic seduction and submission that even her most vivid fantasies haven’t
prepared her for.

Inside Scoop:
These two engage in a hot BDSM tryst,
featuring a most creative use of lab equipment.

A
Romantica®
contemporary erotic romance
from Ellora’s Cave

“Sam, I’ve been waiting for you.”

I froze at the sound of that smooth, caffè latte voice. I
hated it. It rasped over my already edgy nerves and dragged me back ten years
in time, to the last time I’d spoken with Simon Pierce, here in this very
building.

On the last day of school, the final hour actually, he’d
cornered me in the narrow corridor outside the hall. He’d crowded me with his
larger body and touched my breast. In distraught confusion, I’d thought he was
going to kiss me goodbye. I’d
wanted
him to. But with a knowing look
he’d pulled away and left me flushing with embarrassed disappointment and a
message in black marker pen on my breast.
Next Time, Simon
.

I’d felt that touch every day for the last ten years, my
breath hitching in my throat, my nipple contracting under his hand. I still had
the shirt too, because many of my friends had signed it and I couldn’t throw it
away just because he’d spoiled it.

I turned to face him now, hoping he hadn’t noticed me
falter, and my gaze slammed into his winter-sky-blue eyes.

Holy crap, he’d grown up in the last ten years, and what a
job he’d done of it! He lounged indolently against a balloon- and
streamer-festooned pillar, like a devil under a cherry tree. He
was
a
devil—temptation and damnation in one fine package. His face, which held that
perfect mixture of symmetry, hardness and sensuality, topped by sexy, curling
dark hair, was the stuff that fantasies were made of—mine anyway. He’d been
tall and lanky in high school, now he was tall and ripped. My eyes dropped to
his throat, which, in my three-inch heels, was level with my face. His white
dress shirt was unbuttoned and the loose ends of his bow tie hung on either
side of the collar, framing a very masculine patch of tanned skin stretched
over the powerful tendons of his neck. I registered the top of a tattoo peeking
out, a hint of something dark, just above the second loose button, and my
thought processes stuttered as every cell in my body responded to his
fundamental sex appeal. Unfortunately I hated Simon Pierce.

I’d been staring too long. I stepped back abruptly, trying
to gather my wits, so that I wouldn’t have to look up so sharply to see his
face. I was flushing and feeling like a fool. He’d always made me feel like a
fool. But I really hadn’t expected to see him here. I wouldn’t have come if I
hadn’t thought it was safe.

“Simon,” I said, forcing my voice to come out cool and low.
Oh God, it was my sexy phone voice! What was I doing? “How unexpected.”

He smirked, one side of his thin-lipped, mobile mouth
twisting downward—who the hell smiled by pulling their lips downward?—and
answered my unvoiced question.

“I didn’t RSVP on Facebook. I phoned Jeanette last night to
let her know that I was coming.”

Damn, and I thought I’d been so clever, checking the RSVP
list on Facebook and only posting my own reply late yesterday afternoon, when I
was absolutely sure he wasn’t coming. I frowned. His statement implied that he
somehow knew I’d been watching the posts. I hastily brushed aside that
disturbing notion.

“Last night? That’s very impulsive of you.” I tried to sound
dismissive and maybe slightly mocking.

“It wasn’t impulsive. I was waiting for some information.”
He was studying me closely, intently, as if looking for some hidden meaning in
my words.

I felt a vague sense of unease at his quietly spoken reply.
I took another step back, seeking a bit of distance from his disturbing gaze,
and took a more careful look at him. He was an eyeful, literally. He was
wearing an austere black waistcoat over his shirt, the snug fit of the vest
molding his muscular torso, and his thighs were thickly outlined under the
expensive cut of his tux pants as he stood with one foot crossed over the
opposite ankle. I suddenly thought with shocking vividness of those thighs
pushing in between mine, forcing me to spread so that he could reach my pussy.
He’d have to split my legs so wide just to get inside me, I’d be pinned in
place and open for him.

To my horror my whole body flooded with arousal at the
thought of being helpless under Simon, and I felt my cool facade rapidly
slipping away as lust and alarm spread through me in pretty equal measures.

Simon had been my nemesis all through high school.
Good-looking and competent, he was every teacher’s darling in the classroom and
every coach’s dream on the field. And he did it all with a sickening lack of
effort. I had done well in school, always coming in the top three of my year,
but I’d had to work my butt off to do it. And for all the hours of studying,
the extra time spent on projects and research and the late nights slogging over
my assignments, I’d never managed to do better than him. He’d always been
one-up on me, congratulating me and commiserating with me in
that
voice,
while I seethed with frustration. Although he always sounded so polite I could
sense him mocking me, patronizing me, relishing our ongoing competition that he
always won. By the end of high school I could hardly look at him without
flushing with anger and my pulse racing, and speaking to him was almost
impossible. I used to avoid him, but also spy on him all the time, watching him
obsessively, until my friends thought I was crushing on him. The truth was that
I couldn’t bear him.

Toward the end of the twelfth grade I had begun to have
fantasies about him. The theme was always the same. In my dreams he would fall
in love with me. He would beg me to accept him, his feelings for me. He would
bring me gifts and speak to me in his beautiful voice, telling me how he would
love me forever, how he would look after me, give me everything that I could
desire. I would dismiss him, coolly, with the same slight edge of mockery that
he dealt me so often, and relish being the one thing that he couldn’t have, the
one that he couldn’t win over. But sometimes, in my darkest imaginings, that
voice would weave around me, whispering things that made me hot, made me twist
in my sheets at night and cry out into my pillow. After those dreams I used to
fear seeing him at school, as if I thought he’d know.

“Excuse me,” I muttered, more to my partner Justin than to
Simon. Flustered by the crazy responses of my body, which were totally
disconnected from my brain, and the sense of déjà vu at encountering him right
here in the old school hall, I needed to step outside for a minute to get over
the shock of him actually being here.

I was vaguely aware of Justin’s nod and sharp glance in my
direction as he examined Simon with interest, and I darted out the nearest
door.

It wasn’t an outside door but one that led to a corridor
inside the school block. I wandered down the corridor for a few minutes, hardly
noticing the darkened classrooms, breathing deeply and telling myself to get a
grip. Sure, he was super-hot but he had ruined my life in high school, so what
the hell was I doing, thinking about being sexually dominated by him? It was so
not
me to even be thinking like that. I didn’t waste time thinking about
sex, and I most certainly didn’t do sex!

After a few casual boyfriends and one dismal sexual
experience in a failed relationship at university, I had abandoned all thoughts
of boyfriends and relationships and had thrown myself into my studies, finally
achieving those first places that had been denied to me in school. That had led
to an equally demanding job in marketing, where I worked even harder. I now
enjoyed a level of success that was unheard of for someone my age, but had no
time for sex, which I thought of, vaguely, as something that would come after I
made my career, found Mr. Right and settled down to start a family. For God’s
sake, my idea of erotic bedtime reading was
Business & Finance Weekly
!
But for some reason, never a day went by that I didn’t think of Simon in some
way, or turn for a second look at a face on the street, which never turned out
to be him.

I found myself standing outside the girls’ bathroom, so I
pushed open the door and went inside, smiling slightly when it made exactly the
same squeaky groan that I remembered. The lights were off, as the reunion
guests were all using the toilets off the hall, but I remembered where the
switch was. I went into the end cubicle for a pee—I had always chosen this one.
Our graffiti was gone, covered by coats of new paint, but I could remember
exactly where I had scratched a heart with Simon’s name in it and a big jagged
cross over it—
I hate Simon Pierce
.

But did I? Or did I still? I’d always overreacted to him one
way or another, but tonight was…different from when we were back in school.

It was amazing how much more clearly I could think now that
I was away from him. I pulled up my stockings and smoothed down my short black
skirt, checking that my blouse was tucked in neatly. All the while I was
rationalizing to myself. Obviously the emotions from seeing him again so
unexpectedly had overwhelmed me and caused me to have some strange physical
reaction, no doubt enhanced by the two glasses of champagne that I had consumed
on an empty stomach. I had never been keen on surprises and I didn’t usually
react well to them. Justin always teased me about being a control freak, which
I thought was a bit harsh, but I did like to be organized. He’d even bought me
that corny little sign,
A Tidy Desk Is a Sign of a Sick Mind
, which was
hidden in the bottom drawer of my scrupulously neat desk at work.

I’d had serious misgivings about coming to my high school
reunion but curiosity had won out in the end. More rationalizing. Just because
I found this grown-up version of Simon enormously attractive didn’t mean that I
liked
him. Just because no boyfriend who I’d ever had had measured up to
him didn’t mean that I wanted
him
. I took another deep breath and
smoothed down my outfit one more time. I had dressed to say “successful,
no-nonsense businesswoman” and I knew that I looked good. I would go back to
the hall, spend a little more time talking to some of my old friends who I had
actually wanted to see, collect Justin and leave. I had no need to go anywhere
near Simon again.

I flushed the toilet, took my purse off the door hook and
fumbled with the lock for a moment before remembering that it had always turned
the wrong way.

I stepped out of the cubicle and froze in shock.

Simon stood at the end of the row of basins, his shoulder
propping up the wall, a flute of champagne held lightly in one strong and
elegant hand.

“What are you doing here?” I croaked, distressed by the
broken sound of my voice. I hadn’t even heard the door squeak when he came in.
“This is the girls’ bathroom!”

Even as I said it I knew how ridiculous it sounded.

He was smiling again, the corners of his mouth tipping
downward as he moved toward me, putting his glass down on the side of a basin.

“I always wanted to get into the girls’ bathroom when we
were in school,” he murmured, stopping just a little too close to me.

I refused to back away and brushed past him to wash my hands
at the basin. He moved up close behind me and we looked at each other in the
mirror. I could feel heat radiating from his body, seeping into my back, and my
own internal heat rose in response, spreading outward from my suddenly aching
pussy. I was overcome with an urgent desire for him to touch me, anywhere, just
so that I could feel his heat, skin on skin. Where was the calm deliberation
that I thought I had achieved just a few short moments ago? I could smell his
cologne, carried on the heat of his body, something expensive and a little
intoxicating, which did not quite mask the smell of his skin, his hair, his
breath, the maleness of him. My senses were so heightened in my hot, agitated
state, almost animalistic in their intensity. I wondered if he was affected in
the same way but his face in the mirror was impassive and gave no clue of what
he was feeling or thinking.

“Simon,” I said, my voice a rough whisper, “why are you
here?”

“It’s our ten-year reunion,” he replied, the same little
smile tugging down the corners of those thin, sexy lips.

“Don’t be glib!”

He studied my face carefully in the mirror.

“I am here, with you, in the girls’ bathroom, because I
thought that we might be grown-up enough now to stop our little games and do
something about our feelings for each other.”

As he spoke he placed his hands carefully and firmly on my
sides, just above the waistband of my skirt. Heat flashed through me at the
contact even though my silky blouse was between us, and my internal muscles
clenched frantically at the movement of his fingers against me. I could not
make any sense of my reactions to him. I had never felt anything remotely like
this before.

“What feelings?” I gasped as his fingers traced and moved
against the silk, drawing tiny circles on my ribcage.

“Now who’s being glib?” he growled, his grip tightening
suddenly. He yanked me around abruptly and dragged me flush against his body.
He didn’t look quite so calm anymore—his eyes were flashing and his face was
flushed.

“This feeling!” His voice was a dry rasp and for some reason
I found it unbearably exciting.

“This feeling that I want to pound my cock into you and fuck
you senseless in every possible way! This feeling that you’d take it all and
beg me for more. This damned feeling that we’ve had ever since high school!”

“Speak for yourself,” I shot back. “I don’t like you and I
never have!”

“Sam,” he said in that patronizing tone that I remembered so
well, “it doesn’t matter if you think you hate my guts. You want me anyway. You
want me to take you, to do things to you. All those years at school, did you
tell yourself that you hated me? Or that I hated you? You couldn’t have been
more wrong. You’re just scared that you won’t be in control with me.”