Olivia glanced at her clock. Well, looked like her day was totally free now.

She found herself wandering over to her computer. Less than a minute later she was typing “Dominatrix” into the search engine.

If they were having more fun than she’d been having with Travis (and pretty much all her other ex-boyfriends), she might as well check out what it really meant to be one. Couldn’t hurt, right?

5 Years Ago

Luke recoiled in astonishment.

“She said what?”

Mercy cringed, her expression sympathetic. “Look, I wouldn’t have told you, but you insisted you wanted to know the real reason. Obviously I don’t know, it’s just what she said.”

He had. At least, he thought he had wanted to know, until Mercy—his ex-girlfriend Samantha’s best friend—had actually told him. When he’d run into her at the grocery store, he hadn’t been able to help asking why Samantha had broken up with him the previous month. The real reason. It wasn’t that he was heartbroken exactly, not anymore, but he’d thought they’d been moving towards something serious after five months together and instead she’d started drawing away and then dumped him. Mercy had always been bluntly honest, a trait he’d liked about her, and he’d practically begged her to tell him the truth until she’d given in. He’d just wanted to know what he’d done wrong so he could fix it in the future.

But how was he supposed to fix being boring in bed? Their sex life had started to wane, but it hadn’t been bad. At least, he hadn’t thought so. They had sex. She orgasmed. Unless she was faking it? Self-doubt surged. His shoulders hunched.

“Well it’s not like she was exciting either,” he grumbled defensively. Dammit, he’d tried to please Samantha in bed. Even if she hadn’t always been very helpful about communicating whether or not she liked what he was doing. He shoved his hands in his pockets, feeling vulnerable and... well, just not good. “I would ask her what she liked or if she wanted me to do anything different and she always just said it was fine. And it was fine for me too, but not exciting.”

Still looking sympathetic, Mercy patted him on the shoulder. “I think you two were just looking for different things in... in that area. Or, maybe the problem is you were both looking for the same thing. Sam’s not always great at communicating, I know, but one of the things she wanted was for you to stop asking and just do.”

Luke wanted to throw his hands up in the air in exasperation. “So I was just supposed to read her mind?”