Rude Awakening

Prologue

Master clenched his teeth, furious at how she’d given him the slip. Margaret Savage—the common bitch he’d taken in, the woman he’d vowed to turn into a submissive lady—had gone out into the snow dressed inappropriately. He shouldn’t be so surprised. Not a smudge of common sense in that head of hers, and why would there be? Why had he thought he could introduce any? She’d been brought up by a single parent on a run-down council housing estate. Hardly the kind of childhood where she’d know what was what. Not like women from his circles, those who were bred to do as they were told and understood how to behave. Still, Margaret was a fun adventure, part of a mission where he’d envisaged himself dragging her from rags to riches—riches she’d have to earn by being a good girl in the bedroom…something, along with learning common sense, she hadn’t quite mastered.

Oh, he’d known this would be a frustrating task. Trying to change someone, change what was ingrained in them, wasn’t as easy as his close fellow Master friends made it out to be. God, yes…you could teach submission to one who was willing to learn, but some of them happened to think they had a right in all matters, a right to speak up when something wasn’t to their liking. It didn’t help that there were men like Harry Knowles, who bleated about submissives needing to have their own voice—a safety net where they could stop play and basically gain control. What was the point in that? How could you be a Dominant yet allow your submissive to call the shots? It didn’t make sense, went against everything he felt a D/s relationship should be. Submissives with a voice, indeed.

Uh, no. Not in his world.

Margaret had proved…stubborn right from the start. He’d chosen her because of her obvious need to be dominated. The way she’d lowered her head when he gave her an order in the library where she worked gave ample indication she longed for a hard Master. But he hadn’t liked the confident air she’d had about her, strutting to the bookshelves to seek out the books he’d requested. That wasn’t how he wanted any submissive of his to present herself. She’d needed a lashing, a good lesson in how to behave when around him. So he’d laid the groundwork, played at being the man of her dreams, and once she’d moved into his home, he’d changed the rules. He’d had to shut up her ever-questioning mouth and take her down a road she hadn’t travelled before, one where punishments sat on every corner and stop lights—for him—didn’t exist. He didn’t stop when she asked him to, when she shouted or screamed out a safe word. No! What right did she have to expect that of him? To expect him to cease whipping just because she’d decided she didn’t wish him to continue? She’d agreed to be his submissive, for goodness sake, and yet, when it came down to it, she quite clearly wanted to back out.

Silly little bitch.

After she’d lived with him for some time, he’d managed to make her solely reliant on him, changing her way of thinking a little so that she at least did as he asked, when he asked. She’d barely noticed the way he had done it—slowly, softly—and he’d congratulated himself on a sneaky job well done. But lately things had changed. She’d become strange, hard to read, and that hadn’t sat well with him. Hadn’t sat well at all.

This evening, as he’d ordered her to strip, she’d stared at him with defiance in her eyes. Oh, yes, she’d masked every other indication of insubordination very well, her body movements as they usually were, her mouth firmly shut against a tirade of questions she would undoubtedly have asked when they’d first got together, but those eyes…

Yes, they’d quite given her away.

How she’d escaped was a blur. One moment she’d been there, yielding under his fisted grip in her hair as he’d dragged her across the room towards the bed, and then the next she was gone, whippet-fast, long black hair flying behind her as she yanked open the bedroom door and fled down the stairs. Master had chuckled at that, knowing she would cower in the living room corner or try to squeeze into the kitchen larder in order to hide from him, hide from the beating she knew would follow.

He’d gone downstairs and searched the house for her, only to find she didn’t occupy her usual spots. Found her winter boots still standing beside the front door as though a phantom wore them. Saw her coat still hanging on the hook beside his, her handbag next to it. The front door was slightly ajar—so slightly, he’d almost missed it but for the chilling breeze that snaked through the gap.

Hmm
… Master had become angry then, striding to the front door and swinging it back, spotting her footprints in the deep snow. He’d told himself she would be back, that the biting cold on her bare feet would send her scurrying home, but after an hour had passed with still no sign of her, him pacing the foyer with a crop in hand ready to swipe it across her face the minute she returned, he realised she had more mettle than he’d given her credit for.

She would pay for that indiscretion.

And pay dearly.

Chapter One

Harry Knowles stood at the living room window of his large, secluded house, staring out into the darkness. Bored and feeling the huge need for a decent sub in his life, he gnawed at the inside of his cheek. The BDSM club wasn’t producing the kind of sub he wanted lately—the women all insipid, inspiring nothing but tedium inside him. He wanted—
needed
—a challenge, a woman who had a unique brand of subservience, who knew how to do as she was told yet didn’t obey without question. Someone who voiced queries, let him know what she wanted. Someone who employed a bit of dominance outside the bedroom—or dungeon—walls.

He wasn’t holding his breath. After years of searching for the perfect partner, he’d failed to find one who even came close to matching his desires. The future didn’t look very bright, and with a sigh, he resigned himself to a life of bedding women who weren’t quite the ticket.

Winter had come on with a vengeance. Snow covered the grounds, his vast front lawn a blanket of white spotted with the odd indent from birds searching for worms in the cold, packed earth beneath. His gravelled driveway had been cleared when the first soft coat of snow had fallen in Manchester—his gardener, Len, had attached the snow scoop to the front of the Land Rover and shoved it to the sides. But since this afternoon, the drive had gained another thick layer of white, although two deep gouges marred the once-pristine expanse since Harry had driven over it as he’d arrived home from the office.

He sighed again, relieved it was Friday, that he wouldn’t have to preside over his employees at his law firm until Monday. Yet the weekend stretched ahead, an interminably droll two days of him rattling around his house with nothing more to do than watch television or read thrillers.

His brother, David, lived in America close to their parents, so there was no chance of getting together with him and shooting the proverbial shit. Harry didn’t mix business with pleasure, so employees coming over for dinner was out of the question, and the men who frequented the BDSM club… No, he didn’t enjoy their company enough.

He didn’t enjoy anyone’s company much.

What the hell have I become? A successful businessman with no one to spend the money on or share my life with. Christ, this wasn’t how I thought my life would be.

He clamped his lips together, annoyed with himself for walking down the road of self-pity. He had much to be grateful for, he knew that, yet a gaping hole sat in the middle of his life like an elephant in the room, taunting him every chance it got.

You’re alone, Harry. Thirty-two years old and alone.