Read an excerpt from my upcoming full-length book, His Ward, a taboo, age-gap romance releasing this November as part of the Killing Me Softly romantic suspense anthology.

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Read an excerpt:

Grace pauses at the top of the stairs, awaiting my direction with wide, expectant eyes. She’s nervous, and I can’t say as I blame her for feeling that way. The last time a submissive came to the house, Grace was clearly shaken by the sounds she heard.

Now that she’s seen me flogging that same sub's back, it only makes sense that she’d be on guard.

I point in the direction of Grace's bedroom and follow her inside, pulling the door shut behind me. She spins to face me, holding her own hands.

“You weren’t supposed to be here tonight,” I say.

“My ballet class was canceled. I decided to come back early.”

“You should’ve called first.”

“I don’t have your number,” she says. “I texted Jen when I left, but she didn’t respond.”

“That was an oversight,” I tell her. This afternoon, I explicitly instructed my assistant to take the night off, which included a direct order to turn off her work phone.

I take a deep, stabilizing breath, wishing I’d thought to put a shirt on. At the moment, I find Grace’s wide, unblinking gaze unnerving. I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve been turned inside out. Everything that was supposed to be kept secret is now on full display.

“I’m sorry you had to witness that.”

“I’m not,” she says, so softly I almost miss it. “What you did in the gym. That’s what you and Fiona were doing the night I heard you, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” After everything she’s seen tonight, I see no point in being anything but frank. “I’m sure you have questions, and I’ll do my best to answer them.”

Something in the way she’s looking at me makes my heart beat faster. I know that look, that raw, naked desire. She wants something she doesn’t think she can have. Something she’s afraid to ask for.

“What if I wanted you to do it to me?”

I blink twice before her words fully register.

“You want me to flog you?” I ask.

“I’ve been reading about BDSM, and watching movies and how-to videos,” she says. “I know I’m a people pleaser, but I’m starting to think it runs deeper than that. I think I’d like to...serve someone.”

The mental image of Grace bound to a St. Andrew’s Cross flickers across my mind’s eye. If I weren’t still humming like an engine left to idle, I’d have an easier time pushing it away.

“Watching you wield the flogger,” she continues. “It did things to me.” She clasps her hands below her navel. “I think... No, I know I want to serve you.”

Of all the reactions I expected her to have, this isn’t even in the same zip code. Grace watched me flog and cane a woman, and instead of apprehension, she felt things.

I run a hand down my face, struggling to come to terms with what this ray of sunshine is telling me. She wants to be on her knees, wants to be bound, flogged, and caned.

And she wants me, her guardian, to do it to her.

Every rational bone in my body is railing at me not to encourage her. If a dominant came to me and said he was thinking about taking on a girl that young, I’d strongly urge him to find someone older. If he refused, I’d throw him out of my dungeon—but not before making it all but impossible for him to put his broken and battered hands on anyone, let alone an underaged girl.

“You’re too young to be practicing BDSM,” I say.

“I’m almost eighteen.”

“Almost eighteen isn’t eighteen,” I tell her. “Even if you were old enough, I would be the wrong person to train you.”

“You’re the perfect person.” She moves toward me. “You’re patient and understanding, and you don’t lose your temper over little things. You seem like you’ve been doing this for a long time.”

“Longer than you’ve been alive.”

“That’s what I thought.” Grace smiles, unmoved by my not-so-subtle reference to our age difference. “I trust you, Aidan. I can’t imagine trusting anyone as much as I trust you, especially now that I know this is what you’re into.”

“How does knowing that I enjoy hurting people make me more trustworthy in your estimation?”

“Because you only hurt people who want to be hurt,” she says.

I study her closely. Her arousal is painted all over her face. In her dilated pupils and the way her lips float apart from each other as she considers her response.

“And you’re telling me you want me to hurt you?”

She presses a trembling hand to the center of my chest.

“I want you to do whatever you want to me,” she says.

My internal temperature surges.

Grace doesn’t just want me to flog and cane her, though those acts would be criminal enough. She wants me to do all of those things, and then fuck her.

The mere suggestion rouses a hunger inside me I thought I had starved to death.

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