“Starving,” Evan and Ruby said in unison, and everyone laughed.
Matt and Bonnie were seated at a large table in the corner of a small, bustling restaurant. The intoxicating scent of garlic, fresh bread and rich tomato sauce permeated the air. As everyone greeted one another and sat down, Bonnie explained, “Wild horses couldn’t have kept us away from this reunion. I always was a sucker for true romance.”
“More than a sucker,” Allie said with a laugh. “Did Ruby tell you what Bonnie did to get Liam and me together?”
“I never got a chance to tell him,” Ruby said. “You guys are all into playing Cupid, huh?”
“Lucky for us,” Evan added, giving Ruby’s hand a squeeze under the table, his smile melting her insides.
As Bonnie recounted the way she’d arranged Allie and Liam’s first face-to-face meeting, Matt poured red wine into everyone’s glasses. When she was done with her story, he raised his glass and the others followed suit.
“To good friends,” he said, beaming at Ruby and Evan. “New and old.”
They clinked glasses and sipped at the dry, delicious Cabernet. Then Evan raised his glass. “I’d like to make another toast,” he said, his thigh warm against Ruby’s. “To true love, the greatest adventure of them all.”
Epilogue – three months later
Ruby sat on the wraparound porch of Evan’s charming Victorian house, which was at the top of a steep street in the Mountain View district of San Francisco. It was a remarkably sunny day, the early morning fog burned away. The bay was visible in the distance, and though it was the middle of December, some wildflowers were still blooming in his front garden.
She pulled her shawl closer around her shoulders as a chilly wind blew across the porch and took another sip of hot coffee.
Evan had flown to Los Angeles the night before to meet with a group interested in holding a BDSM convention in the spring. Ruby had chosen to stay behind, eager to continue work on the series of abstract paintings on silk she’d been working on, inspired by the flowers in Evan’s garden.
When he arrived home that evening, she planned to be waiting for him in the front hall, naked and on her knees, their favorite flogger balanced across her thighs.
Taking over the BDSM Club in London and getting it up to BDSM Connections standards had been both more fun and more of a challenge than she’d expected. While Evan was great at negotiating contracts and procuring equipment at bargain prices, Ruby had discovered she was good at connecting with local BDSM groups.
She loved Bob’s vision of creating not only a BDSM play club, but an events center where like-minded folk in the lifestyle could gather to learn and explore new topics in privacy and safety. She spent a lot of her time during their first two months on the job scoping out the local BDSM scene, connecting with the key players in various groups and organizations and getting them as excited about the prospect of the events center as she was.
When they’d held their grand opening their ninth week in, the turnout had been spectacular. She’d had a great time helping Evan demonstrate the various equipment and toys they’d bought to resell. Bob had flown over for the event. He’d been so delighted that he’d given them both a rather substantial bonus on the spot.
Beyond the simple satisfaction of succeeding in their shared project, Ruby was happier than she’d ever been in her life. As far as she was concerned, it wouldn’t have mattered if Evan and she had been working together in a hardware store in Iowa, building fences in Nepal or sailing around the world on some billionaire’s yacht—as long as they were doing it together.
She looked again at the email she’d just received from a volunteer group in India she’d heard a lot of great things about, but had never worked with directly. The opportunity was in the Sadhana Forest in Tamil Nadu. The ongoing project revolved around the reforestation of seventy acres of severely eroded land. No particular skills were required, other than a willingness to work hard, a commitment of at least a month, and a taste for adventure.
After spending so much time in the urban sprawl of London and now San Francisco, Ruby was eager to return to the peace and purity of nature. But what about Evan? He was much more of a city boy, no question about that. How would he handle the idea of living in a tent or a shack on the other side of the world, doing backbreaking labor for ten hours a day?
Another chilly breeze wafted over her, the sun suddenly eclipsed by a series of dark, rolling clouds. Ruby got to her feet and went inside. Evan would be home soon, and the thought made her smile.
~*~
Evan opened the front door, Ruby’s name on his lips. Then he saw her, the very picture of feminine submission, kneeling naked on the floor at his feet. His cock sprang into an instant, aching erection.
He dropped his briefcase and moved to stand in front of her. She raised her head slowly, a small smile flitting over her lips, the tiny diamond in her nose glinting prettily against her olive skin. “Welcome home, Sir. How may I please you?”
Power and desire surged like fire through Evan’s blood. He gripped the fly of his jeans and yanked at the metal buttons that held it closed. Ruby rose on her haunches, the flogger on her knees falling to the floor between them as she reached for his shaft through the fly of his boxers.
He closed his eyes with a satisfied sigh as she took in the length of him. He entwined his fingers in her thick, soft hair as she sucked and stroked him with her perfect mouth and slender fingers.
He wanted to make it last, but it was a losing battle as she worked her skillful magic. Within minutes, he groaned and stiffened, his seed shooting in ribbons down her throat.
She pulled back, letting his still-hard cock fall from her pretty lips, a catlike look of satisfaction on her face.
Evan bent down and picked up the flogger. “Stand up,” he commanded. “Back to me, hands behind your head.”
He brushed her skin with the tresses, moving rapidly from a caress to stinging, thuddy blows that reddened her skin from shoulder to thigh. She was breathing hard, the sound audible between the swishing strokes of the whip.
He could feel each sting of the lash as if it were kissing his own skin. And when she passed through the pain and moved into that sweet, altered state of submissive peace, he flew alongside her, more in love with her than ever.
Finally, he lowered the flogger and moved to stand in front of his still-flying angel. She opened her eyes slowly, fixing them on his face, her lips softly parted. Without speaking, he lifted her into his arms and carried her up the stairs to the bedroom.
He lowered her gently to the mattress. Stripping quickly out of his clothing, he draped himself over her. Her legs fell open as she lifted her arms to pull him down. He groaned with pleasure as he entered her.
“I love you,” they whispered in unison.
Sometime later Evan opened his eyes. Ruby lay beside him, lifted on one elbow, her eyes moving over his face. “What?” he said, coming more fully awake. “Is everything okay?”
She had her cell phone in her hand. “I got an email today. We have a chance to go to India. I’ve done projects like this before, and while it’s hard work, it can be incredibly rewarding. We’ve been looking for the next adventure, so…” She trailed off, looking both excited and a little anxious.
“India, wow,” Evan said. “I’ve always wanted to go to India. Does it involve BDSM? Are we going to teach some Buddhist monks Shibari knot techniques?”
Ruby laughed. “Who knows, maybe there’s a whole unexplored market there. But no”—she held out her cell phone—“it’s a little more basic than that.”
Evan took the phone. The screen was open to an email with a subject line of, “Volunteer to re-create the tropical dry evergreen forest indigenous to our area.” Evan scanned the email. As he read the details, excitement bloomed in his chest. Ruby wanted him to do this with her. He had included her in his life with the London project, and now she was including him in hers with this opportunity.
Before he’d met thi
s amazing woman, he would never have considered volunteering for anything not BDSM related and would never have imagined himself digging in the dirt in some obscure location in India. The old Evan would have been in panic mode, his suitcase already packed, his shoes waiting under the bed. But that guy was gone, and Evan didn’t miss him one bit. For the first time in his life, he was living fully in the moment, and he was doing it with the woman of his dreams.
He looked at Ruby, his heart aching with love. “When do we go?”
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Don’t miss Claire’s other BDSM box sets –Erotic Awakenings, BDSM Club series, Finding Master Right, Serving his Master