“To be clear,” she said breathlessly, rubbing his cheek. “I want you in my life as my lover and as my Dom. I might not want to try everything there is in the lifestyle, and I can’t make any promises that I’ll even like what we explore, but I want to experience that with you.”
He stroked her cheek, her bottom lip.
“We will learn our limits together, Shelby. But tonight will be about healing. I don’t want to erase what has happened because we wouldn’t be here today without it, but I want to start fresh. What’s done is done, and I have no desire to reenact the four scenes we did before just to replace those memories. In time, we may do some of that again, with me as your only Dom.” He arched an eyebrow at her, giving her a few seconds to absorb that. Mason didn’t like sharing subs he played with. No way was he sharing the other half of his soul. “Each touch from here on out will be out of love. Nothing else. Only the love we have for each other.”
“Mason,” she whispered, a tear leaking over.
He swiped it away before taking the hand on his cheek and placing it above her head with the other. “I said heads above your head. Don’t make me punish you on our night of healing, Shelby,” he said, catching himself from calling her pet. It would be hard to break that habit.
“I’m so sorry, Master,” she said playfully as she complied once again.
Memories of the night he met her, how she’d stirred his body into approaching her, solidifying her presence in his life, came to the forefront of his mind. He had told her to call him Master that night. He’d also informed her she’d be called pet. He no longer wanted her calling him that, and her request for a unique pet name mixed in with his thoughts. He licked his lips and gazed into her eyes, knowing right away how he’d address her from here on out.
It was after all, a night of new beginnings.
“Remember, call me Mason,” he said softly as he stroked her cheek. “And for the rest of our lives, I will call you love.”
Epilogue
Three months later
Caitlin Cooper sat nervously as she gazed over the crowd. There were more people here than she’d anticipated, though a Bronze Star Ceremony was sure to be the talk of the town and draw even those normally uninterested in current affairs out of the woodwork. An event such as this garnered national attention, so in addition to the community and local politicians, there were also members of congress and congressional committees in attendance. It was odd to see such a mixed crowd and recognize so many of the people—both personally and professionally—especially when she hadn’t been back in years. Not that she’d planned it that way, but as a news correspondent covering the War on Terror, her assignments rarely kept her on U.S. soil, much less in her old stomping grounds.
Of course, she had cut her journalism teeth covering local news in Arkansas when she’d been fresh out of college. She’d covered all kinds of stories from festivals to police beat stuff to, eventually, local politics. The turning point in her career had been when she’d interviewed the former governor regarding his stance on capital punishment when a bill to repeal the death penalty had failed to get the support it needed to pass. Though the story itself hadn’t been the defining moment. In fact, it had nothing to do with it. She shivered at the memory and chaffed her arms as she thought back to the night when she’d reported live from the governor’s mansion, and the cameraman had left to load some of his gear. She’d been alone with the governor’s then-aide— and the current lieutenant governor—when he made an unwelcome pass at her. He hadn’t crossed any official lines, but he hadn’t reacted pleasantly to her rejection. Relief had flooded her when her colleague returned for the last case, and she’d quickly fallen into step beside him as he exited the building. If she were ballsy, she would go over to the scumbag now and thank him for the encounter, which had given her a kick in the pants to leave the comfort of her home state and reach for her dreams. Of course, he wouldn’t be able to see it for the sarcasm it was. But she figured if she was going to get hit on in her own backyard by questionable politicians, there was no reason to fear the news outside of Arkansas.
WWCAD? That had been her internal mantra whenever she felt at a crossroads. What would Christiane Amanpour do? The woman inspired her. She was the reason Caitlin wanted to go into journalism. Within a month of leaving home, Caitlin had landed the job of a lifetime as a correspondent with a major twenty-four-hour news station in Atlanta. She’d paid her dues covering stories on the war, even had been sent on location to the Middle East multiple times, though not right in the action. Always on the outskirts of any real danger, tucked neatly within the press corp.
When Caitlin’s gaze landed on a group of tough-looking men entering the room, she quickly dropped it to her notebook as heat tinged the tips of her ears.
One of those guys was Hunter Anderson. There had been a time in her life, whenever he walked into a room, she’d swear her heart was going to jump right out of her chest. She’d had it bad for him growing up and
