A Love Like This - Book cover

A Love Like This

Laila Callaway

Chapter Two

Anastazja

His lips parted in a bewitching smile at my stupid opening line.

My cheeks flushed as I approached him. I had to walk past him to get back inside, and I was very happy about that.

“What language were you speaking?” he asked curiously.

I could barely focus on his question. My brain turned to mush at the sound of his virile voice—so deep, so sexy.

I cleared my throat and tried to dispel my horny thoughts. It’d been too long since I’d gotten laid.

“Polish,” I replied, breathing unevenly with excitement.

“It’s beautiful,” he commented.

His appreciation turned my face warm. “Thank you.” I hesitated for a moment and decided to introduce myself to this handsome DM. “My name is Anastazja; you can call me Ana.” I extended my hand to him.

I wouldn’t normally act this forward around a dom. This DM was definitely a dom; no way in hell was he a sub. However, tonight, he was only a DM, and I was taken, so my boldness didn’t matter.

At least, I didn’t think it did, but the warm look in the DM’s eyes said otherwise.

“Nice to meet you, Ana,” he replied. His large, warm hand gripped mine, squeezing gently. “I’m Kasen, but everyone calls me Ace.”

“Nice to meet you,” I mumbled on autopilot.

My body was still enticed by his touch and the smell of his musky, insanely heady cologne.

“You don’t have much of an accent; I take it you grew up here?” he asked conversationally.

He wants to talk to me!

“Yeah, I did. My family is Polish; my parents moved here before I was born,” I explained.

Ace nodded with interest. “I wish I knew another language, but I’m afraid I never was very good at them at school,” he said, his voice reflecting a genuine disappointment.

People either loved my “foreign” background or hated it. Thankfully, this god chose the right alternative.

“It’s difficult to learn a new one. I’ll admit Polish isn’t the easiest,” I confessed with a laugh.

He smiled, revealing his shining white teeth.

Is there anything about this man that isn’t perfect?

“Anyway, I’ll be going now… It was nice meeting you, Ace.”

I internally cursed myself: You have already told him it was nice meeting him. You are such an idiot, Ana.

“I’ll see you around, Ana; be sure to come back,” he said, and winked at me.

I stumbled on my unsteady feet as I stepped back into the main room. Get me out of here before I embarrass myself further.

***

Sunday morning was to be spent at my friend Rowan’s house. She and her husband, Dale, had just moved into a new home, and I offered to help them arrange all their furniture.

“Please tell me why I had to wear makeup and perfume?” I asked Rowan as soon as I stepped into the house.

Her text this morning was completely random:

RowanHey, I know you’re gonna be doing hard labor today but wear something nice! Put mascara on and some perfume! You’ll thank me later ;)

Rowan giggled and pulled me into the chaotic kitchen. There were boxes on every available surface.

“Dale has also asked one of his friends to help today. I think you’ll like him. He’s handsome as hell and has been single for ages!”

I scowled at her enthusiasm. “You’re trying to matchmake for me? Woman, you’ve just moved house; one giant task at a time, please,” I groaned and rubbed my temples.

Rowan scoffed and brushed me off with a dismissive hand wave.

“Honestly, Ana, I think he’s perfect for you. Besides, if you don’t want anything more, you can just use him as eye candy today. Why else do you think I’ve got Dale putting up the decking?” she said with a wink.

I followed her hungry gaze out of the window and saw Dale, his shirtless torso gleaming with sweat in the garden.

“Wow. You’re such a pervert,” I playfully admonished her.

She shrugged. “It doesn’t count when it’s your own husband.”

I guessed she had a point.

The doorbell rang, and unconsciously, I patted down my hair and smoothed my sundress over my hips.

Maybe this man is~ attractive, and it has been so long; I should give him a chance. Of course, he might take one look at me and not fancy me at all.~

I felt giddy and nervous as Rowan answered the door. I remained in the kitchen, my fingers twisting and twirling.

“Hey, Ro, how are you?” a familiar, sexy voice echoed down the corridor.

No way!

Before I could stop them, my legs left the kitchen on their own and entered the corridor.

Both Rowan and Ace looked at me. The surprise on Ace’s face mirrored my own.

“Ana?” he exclaimed in amazement tinged with pleasure.

Rowan looked at the two of us in turn.

“You know each other?” she said, confusion writ large on her face.

“Yes,” Ace replied, and bit his tongue as realization dawned on him.

BDSM is usually a private aspect of a person’s life. I could practically hear the thoughts in his mind as he tried to work out whether Rowan knew about me going to the club and to figure out how to get out of this.

Recovering quickly from the panic, I answered for both of us: “We met in a bar the other night; how crazy that we’re both friends with the Moores, huh?” I gave Ace a look that said, “Play along, please.”

Rowan did not know about my sinful indulgences in BDSM. We’d been friends for only two or so months. It was a new friendship, but we got on like a house on fire.

Ace recovered quickly and smiled, exuding charm. “That is crazy. Lovely to see you again, Ana. Rowan, where do you want me? What should I do?” he asked, changing the subject adroitly.

Dressed in a white T-shirt and faded jeans, Ace looked fucking hot, his weathered Timberlands adding to his sex appeal. He looked like a sexy builder.

A mischievous look came over Rowan’s face, and I stared at her with narrowed eyes.

I know that look.

“Well, actually, I was thinking you and Ana could put the beds together upstairs. Dale is busy with decking, and I’m all thumbs with those fiddly screws; so I’ll cover the kitchen if you two are happy to do that?”

The puppy-dog, please-say-yes look was the nail in the coffin in deciding that Ace and I would be working, alone, upstairs.

Ace looked at me and smiled, carefully hiding his joy. “Sure. Sounds good.”

I gave Rowan some subtle side eye and walked to the stairs. Ace gestured for me to go first.

Gentleman.

I swayed my hips a little on the way up. Might as well give him a treat for his chivalry.

We went into the first bedroom, where a flat-packed bed sat at the center. Together, we unpacked the box and got out all the bits and pieces.

Ace spread out the instructions, and we worked together to follow the steps. Once we’d sorted out all the screws, bolts, and tools, we started building the frame. Silence fell as we concentrated on our assigned jobs.

I was tightening a couple of screws when Ace chipped in with a casual “So, what do you do, Ana?”

He’d taken his shoes off, and his muscular body was spread out on the ground, close to me, in fact too close to me.

“I work as a translator. Companies contract me to translate documents for them,” I told him. “What about you?”

Ace looked over at me and grinned. “Well, you know I work as a DM, but mostly that’s just to keep busy in the evenings. It’s only twice a week. The rest of the time, I work on my parents’ farm.

“Without trying to sound conceited, I’ve got enough and don’t really need to work, but I enjoy it.”

We conversed some more. I told him about my sister in Poland, about how my parents moved back there five years ago, and about how I hated seeing them only a couple times a year.

“I know, I should visit them more, really,” I said distractedly as I tried to tighten a particularly stiff screw, “but something always comes up. They have ridiculously busy social lives, and when I visit them, more often than not, I end up in the house alone!”

Ace chuckled and shook his head. “Yeah, that doesn’t seem worth the hassle of catching a two-hour flight.”

“And it’s a two-hour drive from the airport too,” I added.

Ace grimaced sympathetically. “Ouch.”

Soon enough, we had put together the bed frame.

“I think I saw the mattress in the hallway,” Ace said, and we found it leaning against the wall.

It was a super king, and super hard to maneuver around the corner of the hallway, past the top of the stairs, and through the doorway.

“Right, I’ll drag from the front, and you push, okay?” Ace ordered.

He’d taken charge of the bed and the mattress, but as someone who was naturally submissive, I loved his control. It was what I needed.

I needed respect, but I also needed to know that someone else was calling the shots and I didn’t have that pressure or responsibility. He needed control and I needed release.

“Okay.”

I shoved my whole body weight against the mattress. Ace’s thick fingers dug into the material, his face becoming sexily focused on the task.

The veins popped out in his arms, and I was momentarily distracted by them.

Fuck me. Please.

“Ana? You all right back there?” Ace called.

I snapped out of my thoughts and realized that we’d managed to get the mattress around the corner, but now it was stuck in the doorway. Half of it was in the doorway, the other half hanging over the staircase.

“Yeah! But I think it’s a bit wedged,” I called out from the top step.

The mattress was stuck diagonally in the doorway and didn’t appear to be inclined to move anytime soon.

“Let me have a look,” Ace said and stepped into the gap between the mattress and the doorjamb.

He tried to move the mattress. His biceps flexed, and I damn near swooned at the sight.

The mattress shifted slightly forward. It was no longer hanging over the stairs and was well and truly filling the doorway. Ace assessed the situation and nodded, his hands holding the mattress in place, stopping it from sliding back down the stairs.

“Okay, let’s swap positions; I’ll push, and you pull,” he suggested.

I went around the back of the mattress, to the side opposite him.

“Um, Ace? I can’t squeeze through this way.”

“Okay, come to my side.”

I went round the mattress and stepped near him. There was a tiny gap between him and the mattress inside the doorway.

He looked at me, the gap, and then his hands, which were holding the mattress from falling. He gave me a sheepish smile.

“Do you mind squeezing past?” he asked mischievously.

I raised my eyebrows and shrugged. “Okay, breathe in,” I joked.

I lifted my left leg and pointed it through the gap. I found my footing inside the room, and my body followed.

But now I was wedged in the doorway too. In one doorway, there were Ace, me, and a super-king mattress. We had not thought this through.

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