Title:  Mastered:  With this collar
Author: Sierra Cartwright
Publisher/Year: Totally Bound Publishing 2/18/13
Length: 167 pages
Series: Mastered #1

Overview

Julia Lyle will have nothing to do with domineering men, no matter how tall, dark, and sexy. But Dom Marcus Cavendish will be satisfied with nothing less than collaring the fiercely independent Julia.

Nothing could have shocked her more…

Julia Lyle is invited to her best friend’s wedding and is stunned when Lana kneels to accept her husband’s collar. When Julia starts to object, firm, relentless hands land on her shoulders. The man behind her threatens to turn her over his knee if she interrupts. She’s outraged, but there’s no doubt he’s serious.

After the ceremony, he offers her a glimpse into her friend’s lifestyle, if she’s brave enough to accept.

Master Marcus Cavendish is everything she doesn’t want in a man—dominant, self-assured and arrogant. So why can’t she resist him?

Telling herself that learning about the lifestyle will make her a better friend, Julia agrees to submit to Master Marcus, but only for the evening. Firm and unrelenting in his handling of her, he introduces her to his tawse and the pleasure/pain of a spanking delivered by a competent Dom. The experience unnerves her, making her question everything she thought she knew about relationships, and his forced orgasms leave her shattered.

No doubt the scene seduced her, and that makes her doubly determined to avoid him. She has fought hard for her freedom and vowed only to date nice men, and Master Marcus is anything but safe.

Marcus is undeterred. Julia is a natural sub. The way she responded to his touch, his voice, his punishment proved it. Now he has to convince her to yield to him, submitting to his tawse as she kneels to accept his collar

My Thoughts

I’m a sucker for a story about an established Dom – someone who knows exactly what it is that they want and who can take the time to train a sub who doesn’t even know that she IS one and someone who’s actually kind of against the lifestyle in general.

That’s what we get in this introduction to the series.  As the summary above says, Julia only becomes aware of the BDSM lifestyle because she’s been invited to her best friend Lana’s wedding, which turns out to be a combination wedding and collaring ceremony.  Lana feels that Julia is the least likely to have issue with her choices, and while that should be true, it’s not since Julia is about to contest it during the celebration.  Lucky for her, Marcus – MASTER Marcus is there to put a stop to her complaints when it could become problematic, and from there, we get to see exactly what it is that he’s capable of.

What was meant to be just one night for Julia we all know will have to be more.  If there’s nothing more to expect from our author – Ms. Cartwright delivers the pull of BDSM in a way that few authors are able to successfully do for us.  We see that he’s in control, on a variety of toys and tools, and that’s something that everyone know will have to last for more than a night.  Marcus has a way of showing us that Spanking, be it in whatever form is required is intense, and Julia – someone who’s never even imagined experiencing it learns that it’s a great thing for her.  The other piece is that we also see the varying levels of comfort among the characters which is something that i’ve really come to appreciate from our author.

While we don’t get the back story on any of our mains, we come to appreciate how they have come to the place that they are in.  Be it the controlling relationship that Julia was in that makes her avoid all things domineering of men, or the fact that Marcus had collared someone in the past to learn that she wasn’t what he needed.  That’s what makes the story great.

It’s a battle of wits, pride, and inner strength in the sense that while we know what the outcome will be, we don’t necessarily know what path it’ll take to get there.  I for one would love to see more of Ben and Lana – i’d love to hear about how their story really began.  I’d also love to see more of Gregorio and even Damien since we only got a glimpse into them in this introduction to the series.  So , here’s to hoping for more great heat, passions, sex, and lessons in all things BDSM, and i’m going to continue on with the series to see who’s next on deck.  enjoy!