MasterinMelbourne Read Free Page B

you’ll probably turn me down.”
    Turn him down? No, a date with a handsome stranger who she
might never see again sounded perfect. “So what kind of date did you wish to
ask me on?”
    “There’s a place I go a few times a year called Indigo. It’s
not far from your hotel. It’s a fetish club.”
    Her blood ran cold. The place in the ad. All her fantasies
and all her nightmares tied her tongue for a moment. Finally she said, “You’re
a Dom.”
    “And you like the idea of being tied down. Or at least you
do when drunk. Would you like to find out how you react to it when you’re
sober?”
    “I’ve been bound. Hundreds of times. Never again.”
    “Then we won’t do that.” His voice was smooth but emphatic.
“I don’t want to do anything to you that you don’t want. You’ve had some really
bad experiences, haven’t you?”
    In spades. Fucking mind reader. “Why do you say that?” she
riposted.
    “Because I saw your feet. I’d never do that to you. Even if
you told me you liked that sort of thing, I’d never do that.”
    “I don’t. I won’t.” Although I once claimed I’d do anything
for my Master. Stupid me. Maybe that’s why Stu turned the way he did. She
bit her lip. No. It’s not my fault. No one made him do any of that stuff,
least of all me.
    “Limits are good. If you’d prefer a quiet evening dinner, we
can do that instead. I know a nice Malaysian place.”
    She breathed a sigh of relief. “Yes.” But he was still a
Dom. Having sex with someone might be just what the doctor ordered to blot out
the memory of Stu, but a Dom ought to be the last kind of person she wanted to
be with. And yet she was getting wet at the thought of a strong, dominant man.
Her nipples were tingling. Her skin felt extra sensitive and her pulse sped up.
“Maybe,” she amended. He was awfully good-looking. The image of him holding her
down flashed through her mind. Pulling her hair. She wanted it. But it scared
the daylights out of her. “No.”
    “Yes, maybe, no?”
    Her face felt warm. Thank god he couldn’t see her. “Sorry, I
have other plans,” she lied. “Anyway. Thank you for the save.” She put down the
receiver, wanting to spare herself any further embarrassment.
    She grabbed the brochure for the gardens, packed her purse
with paints and paper, and walked to the door, wanting to act on her resolve.
She wasn’t going to check her email today. Yesterday Stu threatened her. Today
he would be apologetic, promising things would be better if she came back to
him. He’d gotten predictable. She opened the door and walked out. She dimly
heard a phone ring behind her, but she decided it must be in one of the other
rooms.
     
    Zoe arranged the three paintings she had done that afternoon
on the desk, propped them against the wall and took several steps back. She’d
found any number of reasons not to do them, and she’d ignored them all. She’d
sat on wet grass and soaked her butt to capture the Tasman Flax-lily, with its
egg-shaped purple fruit. She’d had to lean against a tree for an hour to get
the perfect angle to capture the bell-like hanging flowers of the tall Kowhai
tree. And when she’d decided to rest in the relative comfort of a park bench,
she’d painted a landscape, capturing the Yarra River with the city blurrily
visible behind it.
    She didn’t fancy herself to be very good at landscapes, and
yet that painting pleased her as much as the other two. It might even be
salable. Certainly she’d move the plant pictures eventually at an art show.
Working on commission was better, but Stu had never been sympathetic to her
deadlines, and her relationships with several publishers had suffered.
Hopefully now that she was in control of her own life, she could mend some
fences. In any case, painting again was a step forward.
    She glanced at the newspaper on the coffee table,
remembering the ad for a “fetish weekend”. Was she ready to make that step?
Somehow what seemed impossible in the