Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Troy
Entering the restaurant, I spotted Hope before she saw me. She sat near the back, chin resting on her palms, elbows on the table as she stared out the tall windows beside her. The late sun caught in her hair and turned it soft at the edges.
A quick glance at my watch confirmed I was still five minutes early.
So my pretty submissive date was either very eager... or very nervous.
Ideally, it was both. Nerves meant our date mattered to her.
I was also pleased to note she wasn’t filling the wait by scrolling through her phone the way so many people did lately.
I had no quarrel with technology, but I’d always thought someone who couldn’t sit quietly with their own thoughts for five minutes might struggle with the kind of connection that required patience.
Something must have alerted her to my presence because her gaze shifted my way. I had the distinct pleasure of watching her thoughtful expression melt into a bright, welcoming smile.
“Master Troy!” she said, standing and taking a tentative step toward me.
We’d barely spent six minutes together, yet she was already leaning toward a physical greeting. That pleased me more than it should have.
I stepped into her space and pressed a soft, chaste kiss to her cheek. “Hello, Hope. It’s very nice to see you again.”
Her face warmed to a pretty shade of pink, eyes dropping before lifting back to mine through her lashes. “Yes, Sir. It really is.”
For a moment we simply looked at one another, both a little caught off guard. Then I cleared my throat, reclaimed the moment, and helped her back into her chair.
“How did the rest of your afternoon go?” I asked as a server appeared with menus. “Did you survive the remainder of Rawhide’s social experiments?”
I had endured another hour of rotations myself, but none of the remaining conversations had held my interest.
Hope snorted before immediately blushing. “Let’s just say... I won’t be speed dating again any time soon.”
That was unexpectedly gratifying.
“Oh?” I said mildly. “Should I be concerned for your well-being?”
She bit her lip, clearly debating how much to tell me.
“Before I even got to my date with you, one of the men wanted to know how obedient I could be before I even had a chance to introduce myself,” she began.
I went very still. My protective instincts roared to the surface but this was—for all intents and purposes—our first date and there was no point for me to come in all “knight-in-shining-armor”.
“Oh?” I repeated.
“Yup,” she responded, clearly getting into the topic. “I’d never felt quite as much like an object. I mean, if that’s your thing, that’s totally fine, but the point was for us to get to know one another, right? What’s more basic get to know you, than asking someone their name?”
I smiled and nodded my head in encouragement for her to continue.
Her beautiful grin in return soothed some of the anger I felt simmering.
“And then there was the guy who spent the entire six minutes explaining his cryptocurrency investments.”
I blinked. “And you’re saying you didn’t like that?”
Hope snorted again before shaking her head emphatically.
I leaned back in my chair. “Good to know. I’ll resist the urge to seduce you with my twenty-minute lecture on atmospheric data sets. Luckily for both of us, I left those flash cards in my other jacket.”
Her shoulders shook with laughter now, the soft sound of it going straight to my dick.
“That’s a pity,” she finally managed to respond. “I might have enjoyed falling asleep at dinner.”
She grinned at me when I let out a chuckle in response.
“Any other riveting dates to tell me about?” I shouldn’t be this… hopeful… that she hadn’t met any decent men yet. It was only day one, after all. But I liked her. A lot.
“Nothing exciting, really. There were a few complete duds, a couple that might have shown promise if they weren’t interested in a full-time submissive, and then the asshole who refused to let me finish a single sentence, so sure of what I was going to say each time.”
“Looks to me like he failed the most basic test,” I said calmly. “Listening is not an advanced skill.”
Her smile faded into something softer, almost relieved. “You’d be surprised how many people don’t seem to know how to listen.”
“No,” I replied. “I really wouldn’t.”
She toyed with the edge of her napkin. “I wasn’t quite prepared for how it would all feel, you know?
It almost felt like I was being evaluated.
If I said the wrong thing, they’d decide I wasn’t submissive enough.
Or too much. Or not the right kind.” She scoffed as her cheeks reddened again.
“Which is just silly, isn’t it? Because that’s exactly what I was doing with them. ”
I leaned back in my chair, studying her for a moment. “It’s not silly. Those feelings aren’t mutually exclusive. If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t feel evaluated when I sat with you. All I felt was a connection.”
Her eyes lifted to mine, searching. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I responded, keeping eye contact.
She stared down at her menu, and I allowed the tense moment to blow away.
We both took some time to figure out what we wanted to eat, and by the time the server had returned, Hope wasn’t blushing or nervous anymore, and clearly ready to get back to our conversation.
“So... what are you looking for?”
I couldn’t help the smile that spread across my face at the question. We were finally getting into the nitty-gritty of things.
“Someone honest,” I responded. “Someone kind. Someone who understands that my dominance is a responsibility I cherish.” I allowed myself a brief moment to look down at my hands and collect my thoughts.
“I’m also definitely not looking for something casual.
I’m at a point in my life when I’m looking to settle down.
Playing the field was certainly fun a few years ago, but I’m way past that. ”
“Isn’t that why we’re all here?” she asked me while she continued to fiddle with her napkin. “I mean, that’s the point of this whole event, right?”
“True,” I said with a wink.
She rolled her eyes, but she was smiling now.
“And what about you?” I asked gently.
Her breath caught, just slightly before she bit her lip.
Oh no. That didn’t look good or promising.
She stared down at the napkin in her hands, twisting one corner between her fingers until it wrinkled.
“I... might have accidentally signed up for one of the Little events this morning,” she said finally, very quietly.
I kept my expression neutral. “Accidentally,” I repeated.
“Yes.” Her cheeks flamed. “I thought I’d signed up for the submissives event, but I must have messed something up when I did my forms. When I found out about it, the Master in charge of sign-ins convinced me to give it a go...” she stopped, seemingly carefully considering her words.
“And? How did you like it?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t hate it. He stayed with me the entire time and helped me paint a picture.”
I nodded once, my chest filling with a fresh round of nerves. “That was kind of him.”
She glanced up, surprised by my response.
“You’re not mad?” she asked quickly. “It’s just that I am a submissive. And I know the two are very closely intertwined, and I didn’t expect to like it or him as much as I did.”
I had to be very careful with my response.
I grabbed her hand across the table, and she immediately stopped biting that delicious-looking lower lip.
“Why would I be mad? Like you said, being a submissive and a Little aren’t mutually exclusive.
And if you can’t explore other aspects of your personality here, where will you be able to do it? ”
I wasn’t feeding her a line or a load of bullshit either. The problem was, though... I didn’t know if I was the kind of Dominant who could be both Master and Daddy. I thoroughly enjoyed the caregiving aspect of aftercare, but that wasn’t quite the same, was it?
She continued to stare at me, so I continued, hoping to set her at ease while also trying to talk myself down. “You’re allowed to be curious,” I assured her. “This is the place to try new things and decide what fits.”
Her shoulders dropped a fraction.
“Yeah?” she finally asked.
“Yup,” I responded, sounding more confident than I felt. I liked this woman. And I wanted to encourage her to try new things and get to know herself better, but I would be lying if I said that didn’t make me worry that meant we would be less compatible by the end.
No point in wondering about that quite yet, right? It was only day one, after all.