Sophie Oak - Siren in Bloom

“Then there’s your answer, Julian. He let me go. It’s all right. I knew what would happen. I knew I was letting him go. But I have to find my own place in this world, and I think it starts by meeting Master Wolf.”

Julian nodded. He opened the door. “Just know, I’ll be watching. If you need anything, you have only to ask.”

Her heart raced just a bit. The door was open. She could see the long conference table and the back of a man sitting at the end. Dark hair cut in a neat military style. His shoulders rose above the chair. He was a big man. His shoulders looked like they went on for miles.

Did she really want to place her body and her safety in the hands of such a large man? Bryce hadn’t been big, but the one time he’d hit her, she’d felt it. She’d been smaller than him, and he’d used it to his advantage. How much worse could it potentially be with a man this big?

And then he turned. And her jaw dropped open.

Master Wolf was absolutely the most glorious-looking man she’d ever seen in her life. She prayed, prayed she wasn’t actually drooling. Dani was right. Finn was right. Holy hotness.

“Hello, Shelley. It’s nice to finally meet you in person.” He stood, his huge body graceful as he moved. He had to be six and a half feet tall. He was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt that couldn’t quite hide the tight muscles of his torso. He really worked out. Like a lot.

God, she felt like she was thirteen and staring at a rock star. She managed to get out a breathy, “Hi.”

He smiled, and his hotness went up twenty degrees. Even, white teeth gleamed from between his impossibly sensual lips.

She was supposed to sub for this man? She was ten pounds overweight. She had cellulite on her thighs. Her eyes were just starting to get fine lines around them. She was a normal, average woman, and he was a Greek god.

“I’m Wolf,” he said, holding out a hand.

She held out her own, and he took it in his. His big palms embraced her hand, making her feel small and delicate. She was enveloped in heat. “Shelley.”

“It’s good to meet you, Shelley. You’re more beautiful than I was told.”

And this was ridiculous. “And you’re so far out of my league, it’s silly.” She turned to the large, rectangular window that dominated the far wall. “Are you kidding me, Julian? Seriously? Do you see him? He’s…oh, my god. I couldn’t handle Leo, and you think I can handle him?”

She slipped her hand out of his. He was too much. There was no way she could do this. She’d thought she could ease into the lifestyle, but Master Wolf was more like jumping off a cliff into the deepest part of the ocean. She had hoped for someone like Julian. Julian was a gorgeous man, but somehow she saw him as a kindly mentor not a potential lover. Master Wolf was an orgasm on two incredibly sculpted legs. She was already thinking about kissing him. There was no way she could hold herself apart, and there was damn straight no way she would ever be able to keep him. He would break her heart, just like Leo.

God, he reminded her of Leo.

“Sit down.”

His previous relaxed manner utterly disappeared. She turned to him, his body seeming to grow larger in front of her eyes. His smile was gone, and in its place was a steely gaze and a frown that had her eyes sliding away from him.

Yep. He was a Dom, and she was responding to him.

“I said sit down. You may sit or you can walk out the door. Those are your choices, and you should make up your mind in a hurry. I drove all night to make this meeting. If you’re going to walk out, I would prefer you did it now so I can get some sleep.”

The words came out in a staccato barrage, but there was a current underneath them that she detected.

He’d driven all night? She certainly would have waited until tomorrow. “I wasn’t going anywhere. You could have rescheduled the meeting.”

His mouth was a flat line. “I didn’t want to. I wanted to be here. I wanted to meet you. Now I’m not so sure. When Julian described you, he talked about your sweetness and your vulnerability. He didn’t mention what an egregious brat you are. Do you have a checklist for the Dom you require? Will you dismiss every one he finds for you until you get exactly what you want?”

“Isn’t this supposed to be about finding what I want?” Shelley asked, but the tone of his voice was sinking in.

“It is supposed to be about exploring the lifestyle. I can plainly see we have two different visions of how this works.” He sat down, slumping into his chair and running a hand through his hair. He took a deep breath and rubbed a place on his forehead.

When he finally looked back at her, she could see the weariness in his eyes. “You may leave. I’ll explain to Julian that you would prefer someone else.”

He closed his eyes again, obviously dismissing her. It hurt, but he’d been a bit kinder to her than she’d been to him.

“He knows. He’s watching.” And Julian was probably horrified at the way she’d reacted. She’d been exactly what Wolf had said. A brat who saw what she wanted to see. She’d seen a gorgeous body, and not once had she thought about the man inside it. She’d never considered his feelings as though no one who looked like that could possibly have feelings.

“Well, naturally. I’m sure he’s not the only one.” His mouth turned down, and a grimace came over him.

“Are you all right?” Shelley asked. She should probably leave, run away and tend her wounds. She wouldn’t try this again. She couldn’t handle it. But she didn’t want to leave him like this.

“I’ll be fine. It’s a little headache. If I handle it now, it won’t turn into a full-blown migraine.” Wolf ground the words out. “If you don’t mind, turn off the lights as you leave.”

She got up and turned off the front light, bringing the brightness down. A single line of illumination was left, and she stared for a moment at the man who could have been her Dom. He was just a man with all the troubles that went with being just a man. She was so tired of being afraid. She really wanted to find the woman she’d been before Bryce, and that Shelley would never have treated anyone the way she had.

She walked behind his chair. “Let me.”

She touched his scalp, running her fingers all along it with a firm pressure. She ran her hands across his skin, feeling the silkiness of his pitch-black hair and a raised, puckered scar that wove across his head.

“Took some fire a while back on an op.”

The scar felt somewhat new, probably not more a few months old. “It feels bad.”

“No, love, it feels really good.” He groaned a little and gave over to her. His shoulders relaxed and a deep sigh rumbled through him. “The wound, on the other hand, was really bad. They had to crack my skull open. In the field. It wasn’t a pleasant experience. Luckily, I don’t remember a lot of it. They say I never will, and I’m okay with that. I woke up in Ramstein and was told I would live, and some bureaucratic asshole was handing me my walking papers.”

Her heart went out to him. “Did you like the Army?”

“The Army sucks.” He chuckled. “I was Navy.”

Again, just like Leo. But this man wasn’t Leo Meyer. Leo would never have allowed her to comfort him like this. Leo was always strong. Wolf seemed sweeter, the tiniest bit lost. “Did you like it?”

Leo had left the Navy on his own, and when she’d asked about it, he would always turn the conversation to something else.

“I loved it. I guess I’m still having a hard time reconciling myself with the fact that my career is over.”

She took a deep breath. God, she knew how that felt. She ran her hands to his temples and rubbed, feeling a deep connection to this man who had terrified her. Men were just men, even the beautiful ones. His good looks hadn’t spared him from heartache, hadn’t ensured that his life had turned out perfectly.