Becoming His, Learning to Breathe: Part Two - The Collective - Season 1, Episode 8 Read online

  Becoming His

  Learning to Breathe, part II

  Ellie Masters

  JEM Publishing

  Part II: Learning to Breathe

  A Collective Novel

  by Ellie Masters

  Copyright © 2017 by Ellie Masters

  All rights reserved.

  This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this book ONLY. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, transmitted, or distributed in any printed, mechanical, or electronic form without prior written permission from Ellie Masters or JEM Publishing, LLC except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it to the seller and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Image/art disclaimer: Licensed material is being used for illustrative purposes only. Any person depicted in the licensed material is a model.

  Editor: Julie Cameron

  Cover Artist: Riley Edwards

  Interior Design/Formatting: Ellie Masters

  Published in the United States of America

  JEM Publishing, LLC

  This is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, businesses, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  AISN: B0721M24R5

  Created with Vellum

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to my one and only, my amazing and wonderful husband. Without your care and support, my writing would not have made it this far. You make me whole every day. I love you that much, which means from the beginning to the end and every point in between. Thank you, my dearest love, my heart and soul, for putting up with me, for believing in me, and for loving me as I brought these characters from my mind to the page.

  Acknowledgments

  I’d like to thank the other authors of the Collective: Riley Edwards, Erin Trejo, Elias Raven, and Chris Genovese. Collaborating with you on this project has been nothing but spectacular. I’d like to say a special shout out to Riley Edwards. The Collective is our ‘creation,’ and I’m fortunate to have found such an amazing writer, writing partner, and friend in you.

  To Michelle Thomas, our Collective PA, you have carried us through from the very beginning of this project, and have been tireless in your effort to support each one of us. Your feedback has been invaluable, and I’m honored to call you friend.

  To the Ellz Bellz, my street team, you’re an amazing and supportive group of women who have become my extended family over this past year. I love sharing my passion of writing with you, but even more important to me is the sisterhood the Ellz Bellz has become.

  To the Collective Beta Reader Team, your dedication and feedback to the Collective as a whole, and to the individual writers, is truly a gift. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

  I can’t do acknowledgments without a shout out to my editor, Julie Cameron. She worked tirelessly to dress up my baby for its first tentative steps into the world. Thank you for digging through this and for the polish to make this story shine. There aren’t enough words.

  Thank you!

  To my Readers

  I wouldn’t be able to write without you to cheer me on. Your support and your willingness to join me on this journey is a gift beyond measure.

  Author’s Notes

  a Word of Caution

  This book is a work of fiction. It does not exist in the real world and should not be construed as reality. As in most romantic fiction, I’ve taken liberties and compressed the romance into a sliver of time. I’ve allowed these characters to develop strong bonds of trust over a matter of days and engage in D/s relationships.

  This does not happen in real life, where you, my amazing reader, lives. Take more time in your romance. Negotiate. Make certain you understand what you are agreeing to, and when it comes to establishing a trusting Dom/sub relationship, I urge you to move with caution. Always protect yourself.

  Please be careful. There are a lot of amazing and loving individuals who will walk with you on your journey, but there are dangers as well. People who may not be safe.

  When you find your partner, TALK TO HIM or HER. Be open and honest about your needs, your expectations, and your limits, especially your HARD limits. Never allow them to violate the tender trust you give into their hands.

  Always remember: they can’t read your mind. It is your responsibility to talk to them, no matter how frightening that might be. In return, you must listen to what they have to say and understand their limits as you do your own.

  Share your hopes, desires, and deepest, darkest secrets. And always, always, be SAFE and SANE. Nothing that happens should ever happen without your CONSENT.

  Have a safe word, and use it if you must. You MUST have a safe word. That is nonnegotiable. Use protection if you’re not in a committed, monogamous relationship.

  Most of all, don’t be afraid to seek who you are, become what you want, and share your journey with your partner.

  Love,

  Ellie

  Contents

  I. Research

  1. John Doe

  2. Jane Doe

  3. Ultraviolet

  4. Bff

  5. Limo

  6. Silk

  7. Choice

  II. Wine Country

  8. Bliss

  9. Vulnerability

  10. At Dock

  11. Surprise

  12. Concert

  III. A Whirlwind

  13. White Roses

  14. Red, Yellow, or Green

  15. Green

  16. Restrained

  17. Savant

  18. Avalanche

  19. Tank

  20. Stop Over

  IV. Complications

  21. Bruce

  22. Home

  23. Detour

  24. Respite

  25. The Cellar

  26. Truths

  27. Done

  More Books by Ellie Masters

  Off Duty

  Learning to Breathe

  Twist of Fate

  Ashes to New

  Heart’s Insanity

  Changing Roles

  Connect with Ellie Masters

  Final Thoughts

  About Ellie Masters

  THE END

  Part I

  Research

  John Doe

  What if I can’t give you red or green?

  That had been Sally’s response to Derek's question about becoming his submissive. He ordered her to make a choice. One opened doors. The other ended everything before it even began. She’d never know if she belonged in Derek's world unless she took a leap of faith, but she was smart enough to appreciate the inherent dangers of moving too fast.

  Red or Green. She needed a middle ground. A yellow would have been nice, but he’d only offered red or green. Had that been intentional?

  Make a choice, he’d said.

  Her decision hung somewh
ere between yes and no. She'd inadvertently found something worth living for in Derek, or rather had been surprised he’d brought such a richness of flavor back into her dull existence. He’d promised her a taste of something more, and she wanted to savor it, explore it, and perhaps live it, too.

  The force of his personality intrigued her, and he had an uncanny ability to delve deep inside her mind and know exactly what she would do, sometimes before she even knew which way she would jump. What he offered promised to spice up an otherwise bland and flavorless existence. Red or green?

  However, as tantalizing as that night on his yacht had been, his ultimatum gave her pause.

  You know what I want, he said. You need to decide two things.

  His words repeated in her mind, turning over and over, twisting around and around, generating more questions than she had answers.

  She’d tried to give Derek a knee-jerk response at Del Mar’s diner. Beating on the window of the town car, she’d ordered the driver, Dan, to take her back. Again, Derek had read her mind, knowing what she would do before she’d even formulated the thoughts. Perhaps in ordering Dan to ignore her, Derek had forced a pause on what they were becoming.

  Dan, however, turned mute on her, ignoring her demand to turn around and take her back to Derek. Adhering to Derek’s orders, Dan kept driving. He didn’t take her to the garage where she’d left her car after last night’s ballet but drove her to the Medical Examiner’s office, where a dead body and a long afternoon of work waited.

  It didn’t matter that she understood the why behind Derek’s actions. His decision to overrule her choice was a difficult pill to swallow. Nevertheless, there was nothing she could do about it.

  Dan drove, parked, and opened her door.

  “Miss Sally…” Dan was all brusque and business-like, except for the odd address: not Doctor Levenson, but Miss Sally, which implied he, too, was involved in the lifestyle. “Your car will be delivered in a few hours."

  Was that a smirk on his face? Yes? No? Great, now she was imagining things. But damn if that didn’t look like amusement twitching at the corners of his eyes. It didn’t escape her notice that by not having her car, Derek had effectively trapped her at work.

  "You do realize you basically kidnapped me?” Crossing her arms over her chest, she straightened to her full height, falling far short of Dan’s six-foot-plus frame. Her attempt to stare him down failed.

  That twitching turned into a full-bodied smirk. Yeah, he was having fun with this. "I'm not in the business of kidnapping unwilling women."

  "Take me back." At least her voice held firm. This man had an undeniable presence about him, too, but she refused to be bullied by him. Dan lacked the overwhelming-ness of Derek but still exuded a gentle power. It felt very different, softer than Derek, more of a caregiver than a master.

  He shut the back door of the town car and placed a hand on top of the roof. “Master Derek has instructed me to remind you about the case you have waiting."

  Of course she had a case waiting. The panicked tone of her office assistant, Bruce, had her itching to see what it was about this body that had him on edge. He'd been at the office for five years. Mostly clerical in nature, his duties extended to the care and maintenance of the lab’s equipment, body preparation and disposition once she completed her exams, and whatever odd jobs required attention.

  Dead bodies were a part of the job. As they came and went, he'd seen his share of mutilations, stabbings, gunshots, and worse. Why this particular body had him on edge had her concerned.

  Derek and Dan were correct on that front. She did have a job to do, and it wasn't something she’d walk away from. Actually, right now, she could use the distraction.

  Derek’s words whispered in her head. You need to decide…Are you willing to surrender your will? That question tunneled straight to her gut, twisting into a tangled mess, but that was nothing compared to what it had done to her heart. He’d burrowed deep with those words and lodged his presence firmly in her life. However, it was the second question that gave her the greatest pause.

  And why?

  Hell if she knew. Maybe Derek had been on to something? That second question needed to be answered before she answered the first. Until she discovered the answer to why, there wouldn’t be a way to answer about surrendering to him.

  A gust of wind tickled her cheek, blew hair into her mouth, and flicked at her eyes. She gathered the long length of her hair and secured it into a ponytail. Maybe her subconscious would stew over Derek’s questions while she lost herself in work.

  Tugging in a deep breath, she blew it out in a huff. “Fine,” she said, “but don’t think this is over.”

  “Miss Sally…” Dan’s brows tugged together, a deep furrow creasing his forehead, “I’m supposed to remind you to look over the websites Master Derek assigned.” Dan seemed to know a great deal about Derek’s plans.

  “I’m well aware of his assignments,” she snapped, then turned, leaving Dan at the curb.

  Breezing into the front office, she was surprised to find it empty. She headed to the locker room to change and grabbed a pair of scrubs from the rack of clean laundry. A few minutes later, she’d changed and tied her ponytail into a messy bun. That was the only drawback of this job. She had to keep her hair up.

  Grabbing a cap and mask, she headed into the exam room, startling poor Bruce with her sudden appearance. The tray in his hands fell to the floor with a loud crash. Instruments spilled across the linoleum.

  Bruce spun around. “For the love of God, why do you always do that to me?”

  “Sorry.” She headed to the rack of gloves attached to the wall and snapped on a pair of size small, blue nitrile gloves. Ah, the smell of rubber. So it begins. “Let me help you with that.”

  She bent down to help gather up the instruments. He’d have to get another set. Sterility didn’t matter with the dead, but they needed a clean set to avoid contamination of potential evidence. Her methods and practices were pristine, and she didn’t want to think about what could be on this floor.

  They placed the instruments back on the metal tray. She stood and stretched, turning to take in the body while Bruce went to grab another set of instruments.

  Unremarkable in appearance, the victim appeared to be late thirties. He looked oddly reposed in death, peaceful. A stark contrast to the ragged gash over his abdomen, and yes, there was indeed a white, creamy substance leaking out from the edges of the wound.

  A white sheet covered his waist. Why Bruce insisted on maintaining the dignity of the dead confused her to no end, but he did. He did it with an almost religious fanaticism which was odd considering the first step of her exam was always a full series of photographs. For that, everybody got stripped. The dead had no need for modesty. One of the things she loved about Bruce, he didn’t discriminate. He covered the women as well, drawing a sheet over their hips and using smaller towels to drape across their breasts.

  “Tell me about him.” She walked over to her desk and grabbed the camera.

  “He was found in a back alley.”

  “And why the urgency?”

  Rushing a report helped no one. Meticulous adherence to protocols ensured the information she gathered allowed the District Attorneys to successfully prosecute their cases. She also worked closely with Homicide. People like Detective Mackenzie were crucial to the successful gathering of evidence. They were all critical links in that ever-important chain of custody for evidence collection.

  Whoever had a bug up their butt, and thought they could pressure her through Bruce to rush this exam, could cool their heels. This exam would take as long as it took.

  Already past noon, complicated autopsies like this one would keep her well into the evening hours, and she probably wouldn’t finish processing all the slides until Friday.

  With a sigh, she stepped close. At first, she did nothing, taking a moment to form initial impressions. The man had been dead for some time. Lividity had set in hours ago.

&nb
sp; “Did they take liver temps?” She turned to Bruce, hoping those on scene had followed procedure.

  “They did. Liver temp on scene was 19.5 Celsius.”

  She did the math. Every hour past death, core body heat dropped by one-and-a-half degrees Celsius until it equilibrated with ambient temperatures. Holding out her hand, she asked. “Get me the temperature probe.”

  Ever helpful, Bruce handed over the slim metal probe.

  “Can you get me a report on the last 48-hours of ambient temperatures, please?”

  “On it,” he said, sitting at the desktop computer. The tapping of the keys, as he searched relevant information, broke up the silence of the sterile exam room.

  She inserted the temperature probe through the same hole the on sight examiner had used, making certain to hit the center of the liver. The temperature stabilized at 17 Celsius.