Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 82973 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 415(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82973 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 415(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
When he emerged in a towel and feeling clean, the door to the bedroom was open. The bed was empty. Since the cabin was small, he didn’t have to look hard to find where she’d gone. She lay on the sofa, curled up with a tiny square pillow and her bare feet poking out from under a lightweight blanket as sunlight splashed across her face.
She looked so peaceful, and he hated to disrupt her, but she needed a good sleep. He couldn’t let her suffer without it because she was avoiding him for reasons he only half understood.
After tossing on a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt he found inside the duffel Morgan Cole had packed, Matt scooped Madison up in his arms. She barely roused as he carried her to the bed and set her across the pristine duvet, covered her with the blanket from the sofa, drew the drapes, then shut the door. Since he could sleep anywhere, he’d respect her space until they’d hashed things out.
He awoke on the couch a few hours later. The cabin was quiet. A quick glance proved Madison was still sprawled across the bed, curling her pillow against her chest like she was looking for comfort even in her sleep. Since the bedroom seemed stuffier with the afternoon sun slanting in, he turned on the overhead ceiling fan, then shut the door behind him.
Grabbing Jack’s keys, he let himself into the room at the end of the hall. The door creaked open to reveal a space with one small window, completely covered by a blackout shade. Shadows outlined the silhouettes of things he didn’t understand, like a giant wooden X that stood nearly floor-to-ceiling and a two-sided bench in the middle.
He groped along the wall and found a pair of switches. The overhead light flashed on, saturating the space in a sultry red. A hazy white glow seeped from the corners, emanating from behind crown molding that framed the perimeter—and helped illuminate everything else.
Holy shit.
A black leather stool in one corner. A hanging swing in another. Implements—cuffs, blindfolds, paddles, clamps, crops, and other stuff he couldn’t name—lined the entire left half of the room, dangling from hooks. Mirrors covered the right half of the room and the low ceiling. Beside the giant X, the back wall housed what looked like a pair of cabinet doors. Behind him, the cabin’s security hub.
Quietly, Matt closed and locked the dungeon door, then started with the important and familiar. He double-checked the view from every camera, both inside and out. The open kitchen/living room was empty. Madison slept on in the bedroom, looking as if she hadn’t moved a muscle. Outside, wind rustled in the trees, signaling that an afternoon storm might be brewing. A gator swam by as if he owned the place, then slinked behind a trio of bushes. A few feet away, a bunny bounced across a mossy shore. The circle of life on display…
Satisfied they hadn’t been followed, he dimmed the cameras and turned to address the rest of the room.
Inside a minute, he discovered the cabinet doors built into the back wall actually contained a folding table. The way it functioned reminded him of his grandmother’s ironing board, the legs extending as he pulled it down, but it stood shorter and wider, padded in red leather with O-rings studded up and down the legs. He didn’t need much imagination to guess a Dom could secure a submissive down like that.
Within an hour, he’d found the book Jack had mentioned on a discreetly hidden shelf, along with another light switch that shined a spotlight on what he’d discovered was called a St. Andrew’s Cross. That giant X, like the folding padded table, had lots of ways to restrain a submissive. And when he pictured Madison there, pinned and waiting for him to do whatever it took to open her up, get her talking, and gain her trust… Fuck, he ached for her as if he hadn’t touched her in years.
As the sun slanted low in the sky, he grabbed a bottle of water and some beef jerky and finished the book, thankfully with plenty of pictures and drawings, then set about identifying everything in the room, what it was used for and how to get Madison free quickly in case of an emergency.
When he closed the door and padded back to the living room, book in hand, he reread the section the detailed exactly how BDSM differed from abuse and tried to let it sink in.
The author acknowledged that, to those outside the lifestyle, it’s too often misconstrued as a broader reflection of misogynistic male violence against a more oppressed female. That perfectly described the behavior Matt had seen his father engage in for as long as he could remember. But the distinction between what Jack Cole practiced and what Dad wielded? Consent and rules.