“Not until you’re ready to be there. So this is fine for now.” She squirmed and noticed his hard cock pressing against her. No matter how she moved, she couldn’t get comfy.

Knox shifted her body, finding her the perfect spot, and she relaxed into him. “Tell me when you discovered what you are. Before, during, or after your marriage?”

“Does it make sense if I say all three? I’d been unhappy in every relationship I’d ever been in. Then all my friends were getting married and I wanted what they had. I thought maybe a lifelong commitment was the key to fulfillment. So I married Shin Hirano within a month of meeting him, because I’d convinced myself it was a whirlwind love match.”

“Was it?”

“No. After we’d been married six months, he told me I bored him in bed and if I didn’t figure out a way to change that, he’d start fucking other women.”

His body went rigid. “What a fuckhead.”

“I had to save face with the marriage because my mother and grandfather were both opposed to it. Sex with Shin wasn’t great—something was still missing after we’d exchanged rings—so I agreed to do ‘whatever it took’ to spice things up. Big surprise he had made some inquiries to swingers clubs.”

“How big of him to be proactive,” Knox said dryly.

“Yes, wasn’t it, though?” She traced his collarbone. “The first club was basically an orgy. The second club had an initiation for new members—you were blindfolded and fucked. You weren’t allowed to know who you’d had sex with. I said no way on that. The last one he suggested was a swinger’s type club with exhibitionism and voyeurism. I agreed to try that one.”

“What happened?”

“He got off watching others have sex. He’d fuck me as fast as possible—we rarely had an audience—so he had the night free to watch other couples. He expected me to give him a hand job when he wanted to get off. Once, he forced me to my knees to blow him. My resentment built because it was all about him, never about me.”

“So he didn’t drop to his knees and get you off with his mouth?”

“No. Not at the party or at home. After our third visit, another couple asked if we wanted to go to a ‘real’ sex club. We went, and it was my first foray into kink. Of course, the scenes that interested me didn’t interest him. When I voiced my opinion, he decided being submissive would teach me my place.”

“Jesus.” He pressed his lips to the top of her head.

“I tried being his idea of a submissive, and I hated every second of it. There was no give-and-take. It was all take on his part. Around the same time, I got put in charge of a huge new food line at Okada—a real coup for me. More hours, which, now that I think back, I have no idea how I worked more than I’d already been. I found out that my husband had been going to the sex club without me. So he’d ended up doing what he’d threatened in the beginning—fucking different women.”

Another soft kiss brushed her crown.

“I went to the club during the day to . . . I don’t know what my intent was . . . but to take out my frustration on someone. Mistress Keiko, the owner, listened to me vent. When I finished, she stared at me for the longest time. She said she’d been watching me because I looked so unhappy at the club. The only time I didn’t look miserable was when I watched a Domme in a scene. Then she told me I’d be unhappy as long as I denied my true nature.”

Knox murmured, “Sounds familiar.”

Shiori elbowed him and he grunted. “But I didn’t doubt her. Mistress Keiko asked me to come to the club alone, and she started to mentor me. By then my marriage had fallen completely apart.”

“Did your ex know you’d found your . . . niche?”

“No. And even when I knew he was screwing around on me, I didn’t cheat on him. I focused on other aspects of being a Mistress—not just sex.”

“But isn’t a submissive fulfilling your need for sexual satisfaction the most important part of being a Domme?” he pressed.

She shook her head.

“Then what is it? What does your submissive get out of it since you expect full sexual control? Is it just some kind of mind fuck for you?”

Shiori slid her hand up the side of his neck, pushing on his head so she could put her mouth on his ear. “Oh, silly man. A mind fuck leads to a real fuck. I can get you so worked up that you don’t need my hand on your cock to get you off.” She blew a stream of air in his ear and he shuddered. “I can make you come by my voice alone. Whenever. I. Want.”