Chapter 1
Dahlia Simon hurtled into the staff cafeteria, not even stopping by her office first to drop off her coat. Plastic pine boughs threaded with tinsel and shiny red and green ornaments had been hung along one wall in a nod to the season, a small menorah set on a table beneath. As she caught her breath, she scanned the room, trying to distinguish among the various white-coated and scrubs-clad people hunched over their breakfast trays.
Where was Hayden? Had she missed him? Had he even been there? Had she ruined everything?
Her heart lifted, relief flooding her when she spied him at a table in the corner, his back to her. She stood still a moment, drinking him in. Even from behind, he was easy on the eyes, his wavy light brown hair streaked with gold and in perpetual need of a cut. She liked it that way, curling against the back of his neck in pleasing contrast to the dark blue scrubs that stretched across his broad shoulders and back. Not that she’d ever tell him that. Guys as good looking as Hayden Pierce needed no additional encouragement.
Moving toward the self-serve area, she grabbed a yogurt and a bottle of water, paid for her purchases and headed toward his table. As she approached, she saw he was on his cell, his tone quiet but earnest. She naturally assumed he was talking to a patient or another doctor. As she got closer, she froze in place, immobilized by what she was hearing.
“…might want to consider restraining her for the needle play. Ropes—chains—whatever makes sense. If you take away that added difficulty of requiring her to hold her own position, she might be better able to fully embrace her submission.”
Goose bumps prickled over Dahlia’s skin. What in the world was the man talking about? And to whom?
Hayden turned, catching sight of her as she neared. “Gotta go,” he said abruptly. “Keep me posted.”
Without missing a beat, he flashed a smile at Dahlia while slipping his cell into his pocket. “There you are,” he said easily, his expression friendly but neutral. “Thought I was going to have to finish my breakfast alone this morning.”
Setting down her tray, she removed her coat, draping it over the back of the chair. Her carefully rehearsed apology had flown from her brain, his words of a moment before crowding it out.
Ropes. Chains. Submission…
Hayden was regarding her curiously, apparently waiting for some kind of response.
“Sorry I was so late,” she managed as she slid into the seat across from his at the small table. “I got to my subway stop just as my train was pulling away and had to wait over twenty minutes for the next one.”
He nodded sympathetically as he speared a large bite of pancake soaked in butter and syrup. He didn’t seem to be in the least bit perturbed. Was she the only one who’d spent the weekend ruminating over the train wreck of what had been a promising conversation that past Friday? Maybe she’d made a bigger thing of it all than it had warranted.
As she opened her yogurt, her thoughts were again hijacked by the overheard snippet of conversation just now.
Having learned the hard way to maintain boundaries at work, Dahlia routinely discouraged male colleagues with other ideas. But Hayden was different. He didn’t come on to her with sleazy innuendo or awkward attempts at flirtation. Nor did he make any of those subtle digs or snarky insinuations so many guys, threatened by a successful, accomplished woman, felt compelled to make. He was confident without being arrogant, supportive without being condescending.
In the three months since she’d moved to New York and joined the Mount Sinai staff as an orthopedic surgeon, Hayden and she had evolved from work colleagues into friends. From the first, a flame of mutual attraction had smoldered just beneath the surface, though it had yet to segue into something more.
In the brief time they’d known one another, Hayden had made it clear he respected her as a doctor and an equal. In fact, that was how they’d first connected—he’d sought out her professional opinion on a particularly complicated surgical case. They’d met in the doctor’s cafeteria to discuss the case.
They’d ended up lingering over breakfast, their conversation edging into the personal. Before heading off to their respective floors, they’d agreed to meet again each Monday morning before rounds.
As the weeks passed, though they continued only to meet for breakfast, casual flirting began to cross the line into something with the potential for more. A shared look would be held several beats too long, something passing between them that made her pulse quicken. Or their fingertips might brush as one passed salt to the other, and his touch would fizz along her skin like champagne bubbles.
Dahlia wasn’t a woman given to crushes or casual dating. Her last boyfriend had been during her second year of medical school. Her entire adult life had been focused on getting her medical degree and then scrabbling for position in the very competitive, still-male-dominated field of orthopedic surgery.
Yet, with Hayden, she was able to let down her guard. There was something about him—something commanding but nurturing—that spoke to her softer, hidden nature, one she revealed to no one. At the same time, the understated dominance he exhibited could be unsettling. She would catch him regarding her with an edgy, sexy gaze that seemed to strip her bare. Perhaps it was that combination of good guy/bad boy that so attracted her.
Then she’d gone and fucked everything up.
It had happened the previous Friday. They’d agreed to meet at an impromptu happy hour put together by some of their colleagues. At first, things had gone better than she could have hoped for. Hayden was already there when she arrived, and had saved a place for her at the table. Over mugs of beer and greasy bar snacks, their ongoing flirtation took a decidedly more intense turn. Their banter had been drenched in playful sexual innuendo, their attention solely on each other.
They’d been talking about relationships, and how awkward that “first time” could be. When he’d reached out and touched her neck lightly with his fingertip, drawing it sensually down to her clavicle, she’d momentarily forgotten how to breathe.
While she was still reeling from the power of his touch, he’d fixed her with a smoldering gaze. In a casual tone that belied the dark glint in his eyes, he’d said with a slow, sexy smile, “I like to break the ice with some bondage and a good hard spanking.”
Something deep inside her had ignited in a whoosh at his startling words. Heat had rushed to her face, her nipples tightening, her pulse suddenly racing.
She’d read plenty of novels dealing with alpha males who dominated submissive women, bending both their minds and bodies to their masterful wills. She’d even allowed herself to imagine what it would be like to be “owned” by another person, sexually speaking—to give herself completely to another, surrendering full control.
But she’d always relegated these sexual fantasies firmly to masturbatory fodder. They didn’t jibe with her notion of herself as a strong, independent woman. There was no way she’d subjugate herself to some man, no matter how secretly enticing the idea of submission might be.
Yet, Hayden’s comment had tilted her world suddenly on its axis, tapping directly into fantasies she barely permitted herself to consider, except when alone at night in her bed, hand between her legs. Momentarily disarmed, she’d fallen back on sarcasm to hide her discomfiture.