Excerpt:
Braced against his desk, the tips of Aiden’s fingers slid against a half empty bottle. I plucked it from his reach, took a long swallow because in this moment I needed the liquid courage. I wasn’t sure where each of us stood. Not after last night. Not after I spoke the painful truth then left him to drown in the depths of it.
It had all been a game.
My game.
Yet I was the player who was cornered.
I placed the bottle down, careful to set it far from his reach.
My confession could affect him in multiple ways. Perhaps the alcohol was to my benefit.
“I want you to teach me again.”
He laughed, his shoulders shaking once with the bark of sound. Lifting his hand, he traced the back of one finger down the line of my jaw. “Look where that got us last time. How many more secrets do you need in order to bury me?”
“You’re drunk,” I accused.
A glimmer in his stare, mischievous and secretive. “Not so much that I don’t see the threat standing in front of me.” A roll of his shoulders, eyes closing and opening again. “The question is how drunk am I? Are you willing to chance that it’s not enough to weaken me?”
“I need help, Aiden, and you’re the only person who can show me what I want to know.”
Voice husky and deep. “Get on your knees and beg.”
“No,” was my immediate answer. “Not tonight. Not when it goes against why I’m here.”
Pulling his hand from my face, he wrapped his fingers over the edge of the desk, his biceps taut beneath his dress shirt, cold fire burning behind sapphire pools. “And what makes you think I’d so easily give all my tricks away? Especially when you have nothing to offer in return.”
It was shameful to admit a weakness, my pulse thrumming in my throat to confess failure. “I couldn’t do it, Master.” Shaking my head, I hated how easily the word fell from my lips, but in this he had me beat. My heart wasn’t stone. Not like his.
He was exhausted, his voice so abnormally soft. “What couldn’t you do, Pet?”
Air rattled in my lungs. “I couldn’t let him touch me.” My head hung down as if the failure was too heavy to bear, the truth too pathetic to speak louder than a whisper. Aiden would cling to that failure on my part. Would sip on it like the finest of champagne.
Seconds passed in silent contemplation, my words hanging heavy between us.
Aiden sighed, his frustration thick, “Maybe the universe doesn’t hate me so much after all.”
Only available on Smashwords & Lily’s Website: http://lilywhitebooks.com/her-master-s-courtesan.html
Amazon UK: goo.gl/3TMaZq
Her Master’s Christmas (Masters #2.5)Amazon UK: goo.gl/DR1nKZ
Her Master’s Redemption (Masters #3)
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