The Dom Project by Heloise Belleau, Solace Ames Read Free Book Online Page A

hour,” he said, keeping his voice slow, so that his anticipation came across more as cool amusement. “Choose the whip you want me to use on you, and have it ready along with the boot polish.”
    “Yes, sir,” she whispered.
    Therese didn’t like to be watched, apparently, but she liked choices. And pain. He was happy to oblige.
    * * *
    Blame it on the adrenaline, or the sugar rush, or the shock waves as the last foundation of her old life fell apart—oh John —but she couldn’t even think about going to sleep yet. She paced through the small space of her apartment, back and forth, trailing her fingers along the bookshelf spines as if one of them held the answer.
    There weren’t very many books. She wasn’t a collector. She’d always loved beautiful things that came attached with stories, but only to touch, not to grab and lock away. Even when it came to shoes, she sold them or donated them regularly to make way for any carefully budgeted new purchase. Her studio was neat and spare, and that was the way she liked it.
    Tonight, though, she was afraid of losing herself. She needed anchors. Reminders. She passed over a family photo album—that wasn’t the kind of comfort she needed, because as much as she loved her parents, she’d never live in a small town again—and selected the other album filled with her college pictures.
    She’d come from small-town Saskatchewan, desperate to get away from the cold, windblown prairie. Those first years in Los Angeles, in a new country, the city had terrified her, then won her heart. She leafed through photos of friends and roommates, wishing she could have kept more of them in her life. She had acquaintances and colleagues instead now, but the switch seemed fundamentally deceitful, time’s sleight of hand.
    Of course Damon was in some of the pictures. Seeing him still made her throat tighten with sadness. So was Shiloh—Robin used to tell her everything, stay up all night arguing and laughing with her—and then after college Shiloh had married into a confusing religion that didn’t let her do much of anything. They hadn’t talked in six years.
    And John. Always John. From before he had the tattoo, and during, and after. There was a touch of teenage gawkiness in the first pictures, but it vanished quickly. He’d represented exciting concepts to her younger self: worldliness, street smarts, swagger, sex appeal. She’d even asked him out in third year, only to be rebuffed: We’re just friends , Robby. I don’t see you that way. His tattoo hadn’t been more than an outline then, unshaded black lines carved across the smooth surface of his skin.
    They would have made a disastrous couple. She’d been fixated on changing people, pushing them to be their best selves whether they wanted to be or not, and that most definitely included the men in her life, especially the compulsively lazy John, who skipped almost as many classes as he attended and always left his assignments to the eleventh hour. She barely accepted those traits in him as a friend; there was no way she’d have put up with them in a boyfriend.
    Nowadays she was more pragmatic. She did weekly volunteer mentoring, which actually accomplished something, as opposed to wasting her time on hopeless projects like John.
    John didn’t need her help. And did she really need his?
    Her shoulders ached as if she’d carried rocks all day. She’d been hugging herself and tensing her arms. She couldn’t remember being this miserable since she’d left Damon. Not even the thought of updating her blog helped. No, she wouldn’t do that until she’d made her decision.
    She put the photo album back and slipped into bed, then lay there stiff as a board, staring at the dark plain of the ceiling. The city noises that usually lulled her to sleep were discordant and jarring tonight.
    Her phone beeped with a text, but when she rolled over to check it, it was from John. She put it back on her nightstand without reading what it