"Are you ready?"

She wanted it over bad enough that she nodded. The first hit across both buttocks made her go rigid. The pain startled and seared.

"That was just the beginning."

Tears welled in her eyes. There was no way she could take eight like that.

The bastard landed the next two almost directly on top of the first one. She kicked. She silently wailed.

"Not even halfway," he told her.

His words were shocking. He wasn't being encouraging. Rather, he seemed a bit discouraging, as if this were a test.

Fuck him.

She could take his punishment, submit to him, love him. He'd broken her. She'd given him the truth. All of it.

Intentionally, she exhaled and relaxed her muscles.

He blazed another three across the backs of her legs. Tears welled and fell, racing down her cheeks. She never even considered using her safe signal.

She willed him to give her the next two in the same rapid succession he'd delivered the last few.

He waited. And waited. Time became an interminable enemy.

She closed her eyes, let her body go limp, and waited.

He finished her off with a blaze of glory that left her sobbing behind the bandana. He tossed the belt away and the metal buckle clattered as it hit the floor.

At one time, after receiving a beating like that, she might have told him to fuck off. Tonight, when he flipped her over and extracted the fabric from her mouth, she looked up at him. She saw conflicting emotion in his face, pain and comfort. He hurt as much as she did. Simply, past the knot of emotion in her throat, she said, "I love you."

Tears glazed the eyes of her big, bad Dom. And so, she saw, the Master became the mastered.

He manoeuvred her so that she was lying on the couch. He worked the bonds free, and she noticed that his fingers shook.

Finally, he helped her to sit, then he took hold of her forearms and pulled her to a standing position so he could cradle her. "I have loved you for a long time, Chelsea. Enough to let you go with another man if that was what you really wanted."

"I don't want anyone else." Now that the tears had started, she couldn't stop them. "I love you. You, Sir."

"If there's to be any kind of relationship between us, we need honesty. That was part of the reason for the strapping. I wanted to break you of the need to hide."

"I got the message," she said. Her buttocks burned from his fury. "I promise."

"And I promise to never hold back on you. If you had come to me at any point, Chelsea, you wouldn't have felt my wrath as you did tonight."

"I understand, Sir."

"I love you, Chelsea." He tugged back on her head so that she had to look at him. "Be mine. My submissive. My slut. My wife."

"Yes. Be my husband, my love, my Dominant. But please, first, fuck me. Claim me, Sir. Please."

"My pleasure."

Over the past six weeks, she had ached for him. Somewhere at the back of her mind, she'd known there was no one else for her. Jenn had tried to fix her up. Sara, who'd originally taken her to the Den and warned her to be careful with Master Alex, had even given Chelsea's number to another Dom. But she'd had no interest in any of them.

He carried her upstairs. Keeping her balanced, he pulled back the bedcovers, then laid her on the mattress. He undressed, tossing his clothes haphazardly around the room, before ripping open a condom, and rolling the sheath down his cock.

"Later I want you from behind. Now, I just want to look at your face as you tell me again that you'll marry me."

He bent over her and licked her cunt, eating her out until she was tossing her head deliriously.

"Tell me," he urged.

She heard the threat. There would be no orgasm until she said the words. "Yes, yes, yes, a hundred times yes. I'll marry you."

He looked up. "Soon."

"If you say so, Sir."

"I've reserved the Den. Damien can marry us, and we can stay and honeymoon there for a few days."

"Planning ahead, Sir?"

He knelt between her legs, cockhead pressing against her cunt. "Chelsea, at some point you'll understand. You're mine."

He drove into her with a single, hard, fast stroke.

"I'd do anything, take as long as needed, keep you hogtied, but I wasn't going to let you go."

She lifted her legs and wrapped them around his waist.

"You know," he said. "You're not always a naughty sub."

"No?"

"Sometimes you're very naughty."

"It sounds as if you might need to train that out of me, Sir?"

"Every day, if necessary," he said, reaching between them to press his thumb against her clit.

He kept her gaze ensnared. She loved watching him watch her.

With a raised eyebrow, he increased the force of his thrusts, pistoning his hips as he fucked her hard. Then he pressed harder on her sensitive nub.

She arched and screamed out her orgasm.

Only when she was satisfied did he come.

He collapsed on top of her, somehow also managing to hold her tight. "I love you, Chelsea."

"And I love you, Sir." She exhaled as much as she could with such a large man bearing down possessively on her.

"I need to get some arnica on your stripes."

"I'm okay if they stay red for a while," she confessed. Seeing them in the mirror for a few days would be a delicious reminder of the evening together.

He lifted onto one shoulder. "I want you healed so I can tawse you in a few days."

She ran her fingers through his combed-back hair.

"But first..." he began.

"Yes?"

"To continue your hoedown theme, you get to be a cowgirl and ride me."

"I thought men weren't good for a second time so quickly."

"Girl, it's going to be a while before I've had enough of you."

She giggled as he moved quickly, rolling them over. He made short work of disposing of the condom in the trash and donning another. She straddled him, taking his cock deep.

"Sit up straight. Show me those beautiful titties."

She drew her shoulder blades together.

"That's it."

He grabbed her breasts, then pinched and twisted her nipples viciously. She orgasmed on a loud scream. "Master!"

"That's it," he said. "That's what I wanted to hear." He took her head between his palms and pulled her down until her face was within inches of his. "My sub," he said.

"Yours, Sir."

He kissed her passionately, sealing the deal.

Coming soon from Total-E-Bound Publishing: Mastered: Over the Line Sierra Cartwright Excerpt

Chapter One.

Michael Dayton caught a whiff of spiced vanilla, and he turned his head to find the source.

The view of the woman passing by walloped him. He only caught a brief look at her face, not enough to make out her eye colour, but on a primal level, he noted the softness of her mouth and the sexy red colour that accented her lips.

She kept moving in the direction of the fire pit. And like the male he was, he didn't look away. How could he? She was tiny, compact, with blonde hair tumbling over her shoulders, the strands an untamed riotous mass. She walked with determination, her hips swaying seductively as she navigated the uneven flagstone patio. Her grace was even more remarkable, given the unyielding leather dress and her crazy-high stilettos. Even though the shoes added extra height, she didn't look tall. In fact, he doubted she'd reach his chin.

A need to protect flared in him. The sensation was as unexpected as it was unwelcome.

On occasion, he played with women at Damien's home, known as the Den. Michael had been sexually attracted to many of them. But he'd only had this kind of visceral reaction one other time in his thirty years. He'd ignored his intuition and the warnings of others and ended up married within three months.

A few years later, he and his bride had been in court, and he'd spent most of his inheritance to hold onto the Eagle's Bend Ranch. The two thousand acres had been in his family for over eighty years, and if he had lost it, he was certain his father would haunt him from the grave. The lessons Michael had learnt in rebuilding his life and fortune had made him harder, smarter and more wary.

He adjusted his cowboy hat and continued to look at the blonde. She had joined a group of people near the fire. Her figure-hugging dress did as much to arouse him as nudity would have.

Until this moment, he hadn't missed having a woman in his bedroom, tied to his rustic four-poster bed, arms and legs spread wide as she lay there for him, willing and waiting. Last night, he'd gone to bed alone after masturbating to ease the day's tension. Tonight, he hoped things would be different. He was glad he hadn't simply tossed away the invitation to the Den's solstice party. Although, he admitted, if he took this woman home, he'd wish for a longer night rather than a longer day.

As if sensing his perusal, she glanced over her shoulder. They made eye contact for less than five seconds, but it was enough, more than enough for him.

He heard someone say, "She's trouble."

Michael blinked and reluctantly turned towards the newcomer, Gregorio, the Den's caretaker.

"Don't go there," Gregorio advised, coming to a stop in front of him.

But Michael was already thinking about her, despite the fact she didn't resemble the women who generally caught his eye. He preferred a more rounded, feminine form-a woman that could withstand the rigors of ranch life.

"Her name's Sydney Wallace," Gregorio said.

Michael was aware of Gregorio's voice, but his focus was elsewhere. Sydney. Unusual name. He let it roll around in his mind, imagined how it might sound when he said it aloud as he told her what to do.

"She used to dance nude in a cabaret in Vegas and has a boa constrictor as a pet. It killed her last Dom and dragged him out to the backyard. She's on the run from the law. We heard she's wanted in ten states and two Canadian provinces." Gregorio snapped his fingers near Michael's face, jarring him from his reverie. "You listening to me, Mike?"

"Huh?" He shook his head and looked at Gregorio.

"I figured you weren't listening, otherwise you'd have decked me for calling you Mike." Gregorio chuckled. "Seriously, if you want to play, there are a number of subs here tonight-they're wearing the house's purple wristband. That means they're available for a scene, they know the rules, and they follow them. Any one of them would be much better for you than Sydney."

Gregorio, as Damien Lowell's right-hand man, knew things. Gregorio understood human nature and, since he tracked all the membership applications, he had insider knowledge of everyone at the Den. He served as a house monitor, and sometimes participated in scenes. Because he was so well respected, Doms and subs alike listened to him. Those who didn't often rued their decision.

For the first time, Michael wanted to ignore Gregorio's unsolicited advice. "I didn't see a collar around her neck." He took in the people she was standing with. "And she doesn't seem to be here with anyone."

"She doesn't have a Dom."

"I'll bite. What's wrong with Ms Wallace?"

"Other than the snake and the problems with the law?"

"What?" he asked, taking a drink of the light beer from his cup and looking back at her. A waiter approached with a tray full of sparkling water, and she snagged a flute. Her back was to him, and he couldn't drag his gaze away from her shapely derriere. "Is she a Domme?"

"She's a sub," Gregorio said, giving the answer Michael wanted. "But one with no real interest in a relationship with a man."

He blinked. "She's gay?" Please God, no, not now that he was imagining her legs wrapped around his waist as he drove into her wet pussy.