You’re just being stupid. She tried to reason herself out of her fear. It’s butterflies, that’s all.

Except some part of her knew it wasn’t.

She’d read an article on one of those endless BDSM sites she’d perused over the past year written by a submissive waiting for “the one.” It was about the woman’s experiences, going to clubs, doing scenes, all the while feeling unfulfilled, because even if it was pleasurable, even if each Dom took her just where she wanted to go, it all felt empty because she hadn’t found “the one.” And of course, the end to the tale was how she felt when it finally was right, when she found “the one” and they lived happily ever after.

And as much as Katie had tried to convince herself otherwise, she knew that Patrick wasn’t “the one” and anything they did together was going to leave her feeling just the same-hollow and unsated. There had to be a way out of this. Katie tried to speak but the gag did its job quite well, trapping her tongue, making anything but grunting impossible. Besides, Patrick’s gaze was on her body, not her face. She felt the heat of it, the way he looked at her breasts, his eyes dipping to the dark triangle of hair between her thighs.

She tried again, but Patrick was focused on the crop in his hand, trailing it over her shoulder and down to her breast. The “scene” had started and Katie found herself desperate to end it. Now. Right now. Even as the crop flicked over her nipple and her body responded, her pussy clenching with lust-she’d been fantasizing about this for so long, so very long. Yet here she was, and she couldn’t go through with it, in spite of the way her other nipple hardened when the crop found that one too.