Back to Vanilla by Jennifer Maschek Read Free Book Online

spoke, as if nothing on the planet could or
would convince her to stay, and Alasdair was momentarily torn
between a fear of his own disappointment and the need to make this
young woman feel at ease. His time with Lyall’s mum, Lexi, had
given him plenty of practice with what he assumed were panic
attacks, and this felt to him like the beginnings of a spark that
could either flame up and put her on the next train home, or be
damped down. That was his challenge.
    “Look, sit down,” he
said slowly, modulated and relying entirely on the power of his
voice. He stood up, and took care to keep a healthy distance
between them. “It’s fine. Whatever you choose to do, I’ll help you
with it. I’ll sort out your return journey, if you need it, but
truly, girl, you need to relax. You’re safe here. You’re safe.”
    For the second time
that day, he pointed his left index finger towards the chair he’d
just vacated, and guided her bit by bit with actions, not touching
her, to sit down herself. Alasdair took the cosy woollen blanket
from the foot of the bed and threw it over her. He then poured her
a stiff one, still nothing for himself, into a plain white tea mug
from the beverage tray and passed it over with a degree of
deliberation. He sat down then on the wooden desk chair, the seat
of which was covered with black imitation leather; it squeaked a
little, fart-like, as he settled down.
    Tamsin smiled weakly
in response to the eyebrow he raised sheepishly at the suspicious
noise. It was the kind of smile that curved her lips a little down
at the edges rather than up.
    “I know, I know,
that’s the stupid thing, how safe I am, but I just,” she paused and
slugged a hefty shot, the dainty fingers of her right hand curled
firmly around the cup. “I just feel so silly and so totally out of
my comfort zone, and I know it’s wrong, because this is about me,
but I just…”
    “You’re thinking that
maybe I’m just some dirty auld man, and that if you let me into
your head I’ll take advantage of you and you’ll be left soiled with
shivers running down at the memory of some filthy thing or things
you wished you hadn’t done?”
    With pursed lips and a
slight gleam returning to her eye, LittleGirlLost started to giggle
a little, and raised her almost black eyes to look at him.
    “You’re thinking that
I’m going to do things to you that your young lads haven’t and then
you’ll, maybe, lose control and not know how to get it back? Maybe
even become addicted to your old Meister? Hey, LittleGirl? Is that
what you’re thinking? Is it, you cheeky wee thing?”
    Alasdair was still
studiously not touching her, or moving closer, but by this point,
she was barely holding it together, like a kid being tickled and
writhing in her chair. Her bare feet were tucked up under her and
she seemed to be decreasing in size before his eyes. She had tucked
her short straight brown bob behind her ears and looked totally
enchanting and absolutely exposed. There was something almost
oriental about her, he thought – almond eyes, snub of a nose and
full pink-lipped small mouth – and presently, when she had calmed
herself and regained her poise, she looked up at him with a flicker
of a secret smile on that perfectly drawn Cupid’s bow.
    The reality was, in
her head at least, that she had to stay there, with him, in that
hotel, or this was a spectre that was going to keep returning to
haunt her. Everything she had read about and experienced of the
BDSM scene had left her, if not hungering for, then profoundly
interested in exploring what he had said could feel like an
out-of-body experience, and one that he could give her. She loved
the notion of being under the command, at the sexual mercy, of
someone she truly trusted, but, genuinely, it was more than that;
Tamsin coveted the strong whole-body buzzing feeling accompanied by
a total lack of focus that she’d seen reported again and again.
    “It is apparently
caused by endorphins,