Yes, Master Read online

  One romantic night, one big lie, will it save her marriage or fill her heart with more emptiness? Will this be the answer to her prayers? In life, are there truly second chances?

  http://www.amazon.com/Second-Chances-NJ-Cole-ebook/dp/B00JHL3YLU/ref=pd_sim_kstore_4?ie=UTF8&refRID=1YM7C9HJ8S6WGD43B0SH

  Em Grayson had everything she wanted: the perfect life, the perfect job, nothing to hold her back. Or so she thought until she attended a BDSM convention in Las Vegas that turned her world upside down and had her questioning everything. Approached by an old friend about a business opportunity in Reno, she’s forced to look at her current situation and make life-altering decisions. Violet Jennings is a quiet submissive who longs for acceptance in her life. She begins to find an inner peace while working as a receptionist in a BDSM club. When she meets the mysterious M, she’s driven by a need to serve more than ever before. Together, will these two be able to find the happiness that has eluded them? Will the need to dominate and serve be enough? Or will they find more than they were looking for?

  http://www.amazon.com/Yes-Mistress-NJ-Cole-ebook/dp/B00NF0LL3W/ref=sr_1_6?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1418542469&sr=1-6&keywords=yes%2C+mistress

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  Prologue

  “I’m late, Nick.”

  Those three words had changed my life over twenty-one years ago. At the time, I thought my life was over; now, I thought of it as my greatest blessing.

  I didn’t even know what she meant when she first said it. Hell, I was fifteen and knew nothing about nothing. Tami Watson was a sophomore, and it was the fall of my freshman year at Mayfield High School. I’d only gone out with her a few times, and then one night after a football game, everyone headed down to the beach for a bonfire. There was a bit of drinking, and before I knew it, Tami and I were off on our own making out in the sand.

  There are two things to know about fifteen-year-old boys and sex. The first is, we never actually think we’re going to get it, so we’re not prepared, and the second is, it’s over before it even starts.

  Most of what happened that night was clouded by cheap beer, but I do remember sliding her cheerleading skirt up and her panties down. She asked if I had a condom, and I told her I didn’t. I offered to go ask if anyone on the team had one, but she said I could just pull out. That was the plan, and I did pull out, sort of.

  Her body had felt so good, so warm and wet. I just want to thrust a few more times before pulling out. I was coming as I pulled out. I don’t think she noticed. Hell, she’d had enough Strawberry Boone’s Farm she probably didn’t remember much.

  There we were, a month later, looking at that stick. It wasn’t the kind they make now that say “pregnant” or have a cute happy face. It was just two lines, but that second line was the end of everything I knew.

  At first, Tami wanted to have an abortion. She said she had some money saved up, and there was a clinic where she could go. She just needed a bit from me. I’d have to give her some of what I’d been saving for a car, but I’d agreed because I was scared. The more I thought about it, the more I didn’t want her to go.

  It didn’t matter because, by the next week, the whole abortion idea was out the window. It turned out you had to have at least one parent’s consent for an abortion if you were under eighteen in our state.

  She told her mother, a devout Catholic, and there was no more talk of that. She came to school for a few more months, but one day, she just didn’t show up. After being missing for a week, I worked up the courage to go to her house. It was the scariest thing I’d ever done in my life, knocking on that door, but I had to know if she was all right, if my baby was all right.

  I prayed for her mother to answer the door, but God didn’t like me because it was her father. I wasn’t sure if he knew I was the one who had gotten Tami pregnant, but one look from him and there was no doubt.

  “Hello, sir,” I said, though I’d never called a man “sir” in my life until that point. “Is Tami here?”

  He just glared at me for a long time. Finally, he spoke, “Tami has gone to stay with her grandmother. She will be back in school next year. You are never to talk to her again. Am I clear?”

  He stared me down, and I found myself saying, “Yes, sir,” and the door slammed in my face before I even knew what had happened.

  I spent the rest of my freshman year in a haze. Now, I would categorize it as a mild depression, but then, I’m sure my teachers just thought I was a moody teenager. My mother noticed, but with waitressing sixteen-hour days at the diner, she didn’t have the time or money to do anything about it. All she would say is, “Whatever it is, Nick, when you’re ready to talk about it, I’ll listen.”

  She was a great mom. She’d raised me on her own since I’d been seven years old. My dad was a truck driver, and he would go across country and be gone all week. Sometimes, he didn’t come home for two weeks. Then, one day, he just never came home at all. My mom had to track him down and file for divorce to try to get child support. He was living with another woman out east somewhere. Most of the time when people asked about my dad, I just told them he’d been killed in a trucking accident. It was sort of true, he was dead to me.

  I thought about Tami every day, but this was before cell phones and the internet. There was no way to get in touch with her. School had kept me distracted, and even though I was depressed, I’d managed to keep up my grades. I wasn’t necessarily book smart, but I had a great memory and I was quick, so I could almost always pull a B in a class with only a little bit of effort. I finished out my freshman year on the honor roll despite what had happened.

  Summer vacation was the hardest. During school, the people and classes kept me distracted. When I was off, just sitting at home gave me time to think. Was Tami still pregnant? I tried to figure out her due date from the night we’d had sex. It would have to be happening over the summer. I didn’t have to wonder long because two weeks into the vacation, there was a knock at the door and I was officially served papers.

  My heart raced as I had to sign for them. I had no idea what they were, and even the first time I read over them, I wasn’t sure what they were saying. “Termination of Rights.” It sounded like someone had been terminated, as in killed or fired. After reading it again, I realized I was supposed to sign it to give away my rights to the baby. There was a letter inside stating Tami had decided to give the baby up for adoption, and she needed my signature. I should sign the papers and take them to the lawyer’s office in town.

  For two days, I didn’t eat or sleep. I just stared at the line on that form. The lawyer’s office even called and left a message, which I quickly deleted.

  When my mom came home from work that night, I decided I needed to be man enough to tell her what had happened. I knew she was tired from her shift, she always was. She was sitting at the kitchen table eating something she’d brought home from the diner with her feet up on the chair across from her. The moment she saw me, she knew I was ready to talk. Moving her feet, she pushed out the chair so I could sit down.

  “Mom, I made a terrible mistake,” I started, and I could feel the tears well up in my eyes. “Last fall, after one of the football games, there was this bonfire and I went. There was some drinking, and I had sex with Tami Watson.”

  My mother didn’t say a word or bat an eye at my confession to underage drinking or premarital sex. I suppose I was almost sixteen, and neither would have been that big of a surprise.

  “She got pregnant, Mom.” Her lips pressed together in a thin line, but she let me continue talking. “At first, she was going to have an abortion, but then she decided to have the baby. I went to see her at her house, but she was gone. Her dad said she went to stay with her grandmother.” I realized I was just spilling everything, and I hoped my mom could keep up.

  “Two days ago, this came. I had to sign for it.” I handed my
mom the termination of rights document. She looked at it and looked back to me. “Tami wants to give the baby up for adoption.”

  My mom was quiet, and I wondered what was going through her head, but I was grateful she was just letting me speak. “The thing is, Mom, I’ve been staring at that for two days. I can’t sign it. I really want my baby.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked, looking me in the eye.

  “Yes, Mom. I’ve been thinking about it all year. I know it will be hard. I’ll have to get a job, maybe even quit school, but I’ve felt sick for the last six months since she left. Then, in the past few hours when I started to think maybe I wouldn’t sign, I finally felt happy. It was the first time all year I’ve felt like smiling.”

  “It’s going to be hard,” she said.

  “I know.”

  “No, you don’t know,” she smiled, “but I’ll be here with you.”

  “Thanks, Mom. I appreciate it, but I’m going to raise this baby. It was my mistake, and I will take care of it.”

  She stood up, pulled me to my feet, and hugged me. “Tomorrow, we will go see this attorney,” she said, pointing at the letter. She pulled back and looked me dead in the eye. “And that’s the last time you will refer to my grandchild as a mistake.”

  Tears were streaming down her face, and I couldn’t help the ones that flowed down mine. I nodded, and she hugged me again, just holding me in her arms for a long time.

  The attorney looked glad to see me when I walked in. I guess he must have known who I was. We did live in a small town.

  “Got the papers, son?” he asked, looking from me to my mother.

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m not signing them. I actually came down here to tell you I’m keeping the baby. What papers do I need to sign for that?”

  I guess they weren’t expecting that because they had me wait in the lobby, and before I knew it, Tami’s mother and father were there and an awful lot of yelling was going on. After Mr. Watson had finished yelling at the attorney, he turned to yell at me.

  “First, you go and cause all this trouble by doing this to my daughter, and now, you don’t have the decency to just sign the papers so it can be over? What kind of boy are you?”

  I didn’t even have the chance to answer because my mother stood up and got right in Mr. Watson’s face. She pointed her finger right at his chest. “I don’t know who you think you’re talking to, and what exactly you think happened, but unless this child was conceived in some way I’ve never heard of, your daughter was just as responsible. And as to what kind of boy my son is … he isn’t ... He’s a man, and he’s doing what he thinks is right by stepping up and taking responsibility for his child.”

  Mr. Watson was shocked by my mom’s outburst, and the office was dead silent. Finally, one of the attorneys stepped forward. “Well, um, actually, there really is no paperwork then. Ms. Watson has already signed, and when the child is born, you will be contacted.”

  “Thank you,” my mother said, and for the first time, I noticed she was trembling.

  “When?” I asked, turning to Tami’s mother.

  “She’s due in two weeks, but the doctor says she might go early. It could be any day.”

  “Don’t think that we will be supporting this child,” Mr. Watson said through gritted teeth.

  “I swear, I’ll never ask for a thing,” I promised.

  The next few days were spent in a rush. My mother went to the storage area of our apartment building and pulled out my crib and high chair. I was surprised to see she’d kept them, along with my stroller. I went to second-hand stores looking for other things I needed, but without knowing if the baby was a boy or a girl, it was really hard to buy things like clothes and blankets.

  The most expensive thing I needed was a car seat. The ironic thing was, I was using the money I’d saved up from birthdays, Christmas, and the job I’d had last summer mowing lawns in the little neighborhood down the street from our apartment building to buy a car in order to buy the car seat.

  Coming back from the store, I was noticing babies everywhere, something I’d just overlooked before. As I walked up the steps to my apartment building, I heard a commotion behind me. “Scott, I said to wait right here! I just need to get your sister out of her car seat.” It was probably the words car seat that drew my attention. I turned to see a woman I recognized from the building struggling to get her little girl from the back seat of her two-door car while her son was attempting to carry a gallon of milk up the front walk.

  He was about to drop it so I grabbed it from him. “Hey!” he said, looking up at me.

  “Sorry,” his mom said, hurrying up behind him with a little girl in one arm and two bags of groceries in the other. She attempted to take the milk from me.

  “It’s no problem,” I said. “I’m going up. I can help.”

  I saw her cheeks turn pink, but she nodded and said, “Thanks.”

  She lived on the second floor, right under my apartment on the third.

  After she set down the little girl, who toddled off, I handed her the gallon of milk. She put it in the fridge and set the rest of the groceries on the counter. Extending her hand, she said, “Thanks again. I’m Tess, and that’s Scott and Amelia.”

  “Nick,” I said, shaking her hand.

  “Now sit on the couch while I run to get the rest of the groceries,” she said to Scott, who had already turned on the television and was turning on a video game.

  “I’ll stay,” I volunteered before I could even think about it. She looked at me hesitantly. “I mean, I can go. I just, you know ... It’s not like I’m really a stranger. We live in the same building.”

  “Yeah,” she smiled. “I’ll be right back.”

  She was only gone about three minutes, but in that time, Scott had shown me his game, and I’d helped him clear a level he was stuck on. It didn’t seem that difficult to me, but apparently, to a four-year-old, it had awarded me god-like status.

  When Tess returned, Scott begged his mom to let me stay and play.

  She apologized saying, “You’ll see what it’s like when you have kids someday.”

  “I’m having a baby next week,” I blurted out. Her eyes got wide. “Well, not me, my girlfriend. Well, she’s not my girlfriend. I mean she was; she just isn’t anymore.” I blushed at my word vomit. “She’s due next week, and I’m taking full custody.

  “Jesus, how old are you?” she asked, staring at me.

  “I’ll be sixteen the end of the month.”

  We got to talking after that, and she told me she was a single mom. Her husband had left her right after Amelia was born. Amelia was two and a half now, and she hadn’t seen him in nearly two years. When she asked if I was taking “hand-me-downs,” I wasn’t sure what she meant.

  “You know, things that others have used, handed down. Like, I have a lot in storage in the basement. Do you know the car seat and stroller I got as a shower present for Scott was over two hundred dollars?” Hell, yeah, I knew. I’d been looking for one I could afford for two days. “You can have mine if you want. It’s not like I’m using it. They only use that infant part for like six months anyway.”

  I felt like kissing her. “Really? I mean, I can’t just take it. I’d have to give you something for it.”

  “I really don’t want anything for it. I’d just like to be able to clear out the space. There’s quite a bit down there. Why don’t we head down there after lunch. I’d rather see it go to someone who can use it.”

  I thanked God for Tess later that afternoon after we’d gone through her storage space, and I sat in my apartment with a top-end car seat, stroller, swing, porta crib, something called a diaper genie, and a few boxes of baby toys.

  When my mom came home, she asked if I’d blown my entire savings. When I explained it had all been a gift, she teared up and said there were still good people out there; that maybe there was hope for the world yet.

  Sitting with all the things in the apartment made it all the
more real. We only had a two-bedroom place, so I rearranged my room to fit the crib and some of the toys. I put things like the swing and high chair in the already cramped space and laughed at how much our apartment now looked like Tess’.

  It was two nights later when I was online reading about newborn care that there was a knock at the door. We didn’t get many visitors, so it was a surprise. It was even more of a surprise to see Tess through the peephole. She looked upset, and I thought she’d been crying.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked opening the door.

  “Nick, I’m sorry to bother you, but I need a favor. My sitter cancelled again, and I can’t call out of work another time this month.” I must have looked at her strangely because it was almost nine o’clock at night, and I wondered where she worked.

  “I bartend,” she said as if she knew my question. “Listen, I hate to ask, but I’m stuck. The kids are already asleep. I can pay you. All you have to do is stay there. You don’t have to stay up. I’ll pay you whatever I make in tips. I just can’t get fired. Please?”