Playing for Keeps Read Free Page B

acting like a spoiled brat. He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths to get himself under control. At that moment he could have quite happily put her across his knee and paddled her backside.
    Never in his life had he thought she could tempt him to spank her, but at that moment she was acting like a child who deserved a good spanking. The way she had been behaving lately, she might just like it. And he certainly wasn’t about to indulge her while he was in a temper.
    “Okay, if that’s the way you want to play it,” he said carefully. “We’ll talk about this another time when you’ve calmed down.”
    She nodded, not speaking to him.
    Shit, she really did mean to send him home!
    He hated the idea of going home now. She would be left on her own to worry about their argument, convince herself that they were not right together. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to end up losing her. “Is it okay if I call myself a cab?” he snapped. Fear that she was going to end their relationship churned his stomach, and he couldn’t help that his question was abrupt.
    He hadn’t taken her need to experiment sexually seriously; it obviously meant a lot more to her than he’d thought. He would really have to think about what she wanted, if he was serious about taking their relationship a stage further.
    “Help yourself. I’m going to bed, so let yourself out.” She sounded mad as hell. “Lock up when the cab gets here. Goodnight.”
    She walked away, and he was left standing alone as he watched her retreating toward the bedroom. He was stunned that the evening had come to this and vowed that he would make her sit down and talk the issue through when they had both calmed down.
    He couldn’t relax and sit, so he paced her living room while waiting for his cab to arrive. His muscles bunched tight with disappointment and frustration. He cast his eyes around the room and spied her stack of romance novels, the novels giving her all these stupid ideas. He felt like throwing them in the trash can, as if by getting rid of the books he would rid Cassie of the notion.
    As he looked down at the stack the cover on the top book snagged his attention. The title ‘The Dom Who Loved Me’ caused him to pause. The Dom? Like BDSM? Cassie hadn’t mentioned wanting to experiment in that direction, at least he didn’t think that was what she had been getting at. He decided to sit down and have a look through the titles she had been reading.
    What an eye opener. Cassie obviously had desires he hadn’t yet explored. All the books appeared to have the same theme. He read through the titles, My Master, His to Command, Slave to Submission. There was a definite pattern emerging and he began to wonder about the stories contained within the pages of her books.
    He grabbed a couple and put them in his jacket pocket. Maybe if he read them, he would figure out exactly what it was about the idea of role-play that turned her on. Perhaps then he could come up with a role-play scenario they could both enjoy.
    He arrived back at his own apartment, bewildered, not able to believe the evening which had started off so well, had ended so badly. Unable to even think about sleep as he was still so wound up, not to mention sexually frustrated, he poured himself a drink and settled down to have a look at the books which he blamed for all their troubles.
    Several hours later Matt finished the first of the books he had taken from Cassie’s apartment. The book had been an anthology of short stories, all of which were based around a BDSM club run by bikers. The men were all Dominant, the women submissive. No wonder she wanted to play. The stories she had been reading were sexy enough to turn a corpse on! He had taken himself in hand several times throughout the book, especially when the action heated up between a Master and sub.
    Reading the book had done nothing to ease his frustration. Although some of the scenes had been, in his opinion, extreme and