by Raine Miller
About a month after she’d moved in with him, Sara had been in a toy store shopping for a baby gift when a stuffed gorilla caught her eye. She’d bought it, brought it home, then somehow forgot to give it to the pregnant colleague. In the end, Sara had rushed out to buy another gift the day before the baby shower.
The wren made its way closer to the round table and chairs. Good thinking, little bird. More likely to be crumbs there.
Sara’d finally remembered the discarded baby gift after a really tough session with Bruno in the dungeon. She’d found the gorilla, still in its shopping bag, clipped the tags and took it to bed. Who cared if an adult had a stuffed animal in bed with her? Not like the world understood why she’d sign a contract to be a slave, so why should she even try for “normal”?
The wren must have found some food. Its pecking had an industrious quality. Less seeking, more finding.
Fossie—the gorilla—now slept with Sara every night. It had been over a year since she’d cried herself to sleep. Still, it was nice to have something to hold on to.
She jerked when she heard Cal’s footsteps on the stairs. Oh, God, he was going to be mad. Why had she safeworded? She could have lain there until he’d fallen asleep before sneaking off to her own bed. Well, that would be bad slave behavior, but maybe he wouldn’t have cared.
She’d have cared.
She poured two mugs of coffee, putting Cal’s at the far end of the kitchen table. She retreated to the corner by the sink.
“Sara.” He sounded mad. She tried to inspect his face for clues to his mood, but she couldn’t quite manage to lift her head.
“Cal.” Was she supposed to call him Master now? She couldn’t remember. “I’m sorry about last night.”
“Which part?”
He did sound mad. Shit. “Which part would you like me to apologize for?” She tried to sound humble and willing, but her voice came out weak and thready. Man up, girl. You control a fifty million dollar endowment. You can do this.
“I don’t need an apology for any of it. I would like an explanation for why you couldn’t sleep with me.”
“Fair enough.” Better. At least now she sounded like an adult. She glanced at him. He looked tired. Her heart ached for him. She needed to make this right. “Please. Come sit down.”
His head turned toward the clock over the stove. “Do you have time before work?”
“It’s Saturday.”
Cal rubbed his face with his hands. “Shit. I’ve completely lost track of what day it is. Okay, so you don’t have to go to work.” He sat by his coffee mug, the one with a picture of Wagner and a quote—Don’t look at the trombones. It only encourages them.
Even his coffee mug was charming.
She edged over to the chair farthest from Cal. She slipped into it, her muscles tense, ready to jump away.
“What happened last night? Why did you use your safe word?”
Sara sighed. She’d known this question was coming. She still wasn’t sure how to answer it. She put her mug on the table and tried to explain.
“Ma—that is, your uncle didn’t require that of me. It’s in the contract.”
She kept her eyes trained on Cal. He didn’t look dangerous, but looks could be deceiving.
“If I’m your Dom now, can’t I order you to obey my wish that we sleep together?”
“It’s a hard limit,” she whispered. She wanted to yell at him that he should have read the damned contract that came with his fun new toy. But that part of her—the part controlling a fifty million dollar endowment—didn’t feel like getting involved in this fight.
Cal looked stunned. “Sleeping together is a hard limit? Why?”
Sara shrugged. “Master—I mean, your unc—”
“I know who you mean. Call him Master if you want. It’s okay.”
Something about Cal’s exhausted voice calmed her down. “Thanks. Anyway, he didn’t want me to sleep with him. That wasn’t at all the nature of our relationship.”
“I’ll consider it a good day when I do understand the nature of your relationship,” Cal muttered.
Sara ignored him. “It’s in the contract. You should, I mean—” She bit her lip. “Do you want to see my copy?”
“I have a copy.”
She exhaled. She hadn’t wanted Cal to see her notes. She’d studied it like it was the key to her CPA exam. Her copy had bits underlined, notes in the margins, even a coffee stain in one corner.
Cal fetched the coffee carafe. He topped up his own cup, then without asking, refilled hers. Sara smiled. That was something Master used to do.
“Okay. Hard limit. I’ll review the contract. But I gotta ask you. Is that something you want to do? Can we, I don’t know, amend the contract?”
No no no. Not that. Sara would never sleep again. Cal just didn’t get it. How could she explain it to him when he looked so angry and disappointed?
Cal sighed noisily. “No, I can see from your expression that’s off the table. All right.” He sipped at his coffee, his face turned away from her.
Acid churned her stomach. She felt like she was seventeen and the boy she was crushing on had taken a dislike to her. She wanted to yell at Cal, tell him that it had been the best sex of her life, way better than with Bruno. If she did, though, he’d want to know why she didn’t want to sleep with him. It’s what “normal” people did. Normal people who liked each other and had great sex.
She wasn’t normal. He deserved normal. If it weren’t for Bruno’s will, she’d walk. She would. Let Cal find some nice vanilla girl who would snuggle in bed with him.
Oh, who the hell was she kidding? Sara wasn’t giving up Cal until he tore up the contract. Bruno had given her to him, and she hadn’t safeworded out of that.
“I think we need to do this in a systematic fashion. Take it step by step.” Cal’s eyes, dark and sad, met hers. “I’ll read the contract. Meanwhile, I want you to consider that I’m not Bruno. Chances are, some parts of the contract have to be revised. Bound to be—shit, sorry, I’m not trying to make these bad puns, they just pop into my head.”
His voice was so boyish, so sheepish, that Sara had to giggle. It broke the brittle mood and he grinned at her.
She hid her smile in her coffee mug. She wanted to laugh, but it wouldn’t be very good sub behavior.
“So we’re each going to review the contract and come back here, to this table, and discuss it. Agreed?”
Sara nodded happily. She looked at the clock. “In two hours?”
Cal stared at her, his face unreadable. “Does that interfere with your day?”
“I didn’t have anything planned.”
“Okay.”
She stood up. “Would you like some breakfast? Eggs and bacon?”
“If you were going to make some for yourself, then yes, thank you.”
Sara got the skillet out of the cupboard. This is what made her happy—pleasing her mast…her Dom.
***
When Cal returned to the kitchen dressed and still full from breakfast, he felt almost ready for the discussion.
That damned contract. It was barbaric and arousing in almost equal measure. “Slave will be waiting on her knees, naked, in Master’s office…” “Slave will maintain her body including but not limited to removal of such body hair as Master deems appropriate…” “Slave agrees that she will perform oral sex on Master upon demand…”
The real problem, Cal realized, was that it wasn’t what he wanted. He didn’t want a Stepford Barbie doll to bend and shape into increasingly lubricious positions. He wanted Sara to submit, but he still wanted her to be Sara. And he wanted to sleep with her, and take her out to dinner and to concerts and shopping. And he wanted to kiss her—kissing being notably missing from the list of permissible activities the “Master” could inflict on the “slave.” If he wanted to indulge the hell out of her, why shouldn’t he be allowed to?
Sara was already sitting at the kitchen table when he got there. She’d made a fresh pot of
coffee, so he poured some for himself, then made sure her mug was full. She wore jeans—“Slave will wear non-fetish clothing only when Master has determined he has no need of her services”—and a pale golden top that almost matched her sleek bob.
She had a pad and pen in front of her. Cal checked—yup, she’d provided a pad and pen for him too. Figured. She had a lot more experience of business meetings than he did.
“You ready?” he asked.
“Yes, Cal.”
“Okay, why don’t you go first?”
Her eyes got huge. “Go first?”
“Sure. What changes do you want to the contract?”
Those big blue eyes blinked a few times. “I don’t need to change anything…”
“I get that, Sara. I didn’t ask what you needed to change. I asked what changes you wanted.”
Cal had a good idea what result he was going to get, but they had to go through this together or it wouldn’t work.
“I’m not sure I know…”
“Right. Got that. You want to move to that hotel now?”
Jeez, he could drown in those eyes.
“Cal?” Her voice went from business casual to die-away in less time than it took him to tune his guitar.
“I don’t want you here if you’re going to settle for the same old same old you had with my uncle. If there’s nothing you want different, then I’m very sorry for your loss and you can find your own accommodations.”
Her gaze fell to her hands, clasped around her coffee mug.
“I want you to tell me what you want,” she said finally.
“Sara.” She looked up. Cal skewered her the way he would a violinist who kept missing his entrance. “This is a contract negotiation. You know what’s going on. Pull up your big girl panties and ask for what you want.”
He watched her reactions flicker through her eyes. Shock, annoyance, resentment, and finally resolution.
“All right. I don’t want to share a bedroom with you.”
Cal made a big show of writing that down. “Okay. My turn. I want access to your body when we’re both home, free, and in the mood.”
Her eyes lit up, as though he’d dangled a candy bar in front of her.
He rolled his wrist, signaling that it was her turn.
“I want to be tied up at least once a week.”
Kinky. Not Cal’s first choice, but that was the point of negotiations. He jotted it down on the pad. “I want us to get tested. Assuming we’re healthy, and you’re on the birth control of your choice, I want to stop using condoms.”
Sara’s mouth curved into a very womanly smile. “I want to leave the house once in a while.”
Interesting. “What constitutes ‘leaving the house’ in this context?”
She frowned. “I don’t know. Dinner? A movie? A weekend in the country? Master never took me anywhere.”
Cal hastily covered his mouth to hide his smirk. What a clichéd complaint. He loved it.
“I think that’s very fair,” he said as he scribbled it on his pad. “I want to be allowed to kiss you.”
“But—” Her face registered her confusion.
“I think you’ll find that kissing isn’t currently covered by the contract.”
“Really?”
“Really,” he said.
“Oh.”
Moving on. “Your turn.”
She ducked her head. “No humiliation play.”
“I don’t even know what that is.”
“You call me names. Bad words, that kind of thing.”
Jesus God. People did that? That was emotional abuse. “Agreed and seconded. As far as I’m concerned, Sara, that would be a hard limit for me.”
She twisted her hands. “We should probably talk about discipline.”
That didn’t sound good, but Cal knew what was specified in the current contract. “Yeah, I wanted to ask you. What’s the cage?”
“It’s in the dungeon.”
“And he would put you in there?” Cal had pictured a barred space, like a jail cell from a Wild West movie.
“I needed it in the beginning. I don’t deny that. But it’s very small and I, I don’t want that.” Then the floodgates opened. “I understand that I can’t pick my discipline. I understand that. And if it’s what I fear, maybe it’s the best thing for punishing me, I know. But not the cage. I’ll tell you the other things I dislike enough to be a strong deterrent. I won’t lie, Cal, I promise. Just not the cage.”
“No problem.” He couldn’t imagine telling this lovely, vibrant woman she had to be in a cage, no matter what size it was. Well, not unless it was huge and had a bed and they could both be in there at the same time.
Hmm. The no-sleeping-together rule was going to be difficult, Cal could tell.
He made a note on the pad. No cage.
“I suppose I should go see the dungeon at some point,” Cal said, watching her face.
“I could show you around.” She didn’t look traumatized at the idea.
Cal thought about Marlie, how she relaxed into the strap but struggled with the sex. It wasn’t easy, but he had to keep an open mind about BDSM.
“Do you have anything else you want in the contract?” Sara asked.
“We don’t have to negotiate everything today, but I do need to ask a pretty basic question.”
“Okay.”
He wanted to dive into her blue eyes. She was so lovely. And it had been the best sex of his life. He took a deep breath. “Do you want me as your Dom? Not a master. That will have to wait. But a basic Dom/sub relationship?”
“Oh, yes, very much. Sir.”
“Then we’ll start tonight. I want you to put on your prettiest dress. You can wear underwear or not, depending on which makes you feel sexier.”
Sara’s face glowed with arousal and happiness. A nice combination.
“I’ll go find something now, if that’s okay.”
He nodded. She whisked out of the room, humming a tune.
Once again he was sitting at the kitchen table, hard as a rock.
CHAPTER 7
Her sexiest dress was coral pink. The draped neckline would dip just a bit when she sat down, like at a table where only Cal would be watching. She paired it with a sheer white bra and no panties. She added a white lace garter belt—very bridal—and smoky stockings. The dress’s slit skirt let a bit of embroidered stocking top show when she was sitting. The whole outfit was both demure and deeply erotic. Just getting dressed tightened her nipples and made her pussy pulse. She felt ultra-feminine as she walked down the stairs.
Cal wore a gray suit that made him look very tall and lean despite his broad shoulders. His tie was a solid dusty blue color. When she got closer she could see that it had a texture of tiny staves and notes.
Cal had hired a car service for the evening. Bruno had driven them everywhere. He’d been a crappy driver, too—impatient and angry with everyone else on the road. Sara wished he’d had Cal’s good sense. Let a professional handle the stress.
The late afternoon light gilded the Capitol and monuments. The car slipped along the Mall, then headed for the restaurant. Sara felt too shy to ask Cal if he’d done any of the touristy things yet. She would love to show him the Lincoln Memorial. She smiled at the image of the two of them looking up at The Great Emancipator.
Instead, they discussed the weather—always a safe topic in D.C.—and the baseball season getting underway. They didn’t even talk about politics. Who didn’t talk about politics in Washington? Somehow that was either too personal or failed to interest Cal.
The restaurant was French and fabulous. A maître d’ showed them to their table, which overlooked a private garden where a flowering tree was floodlit from below and twinkling lights picked out the branches of a Japanese maple.
“When did you know you wanted to be a composer?” Sara had been dying to ask this since Cal had moved in.
“High school. Maybe even middle school. The issue wasn’t if I was going to write music, it w
as what sort of music I was going to write. I tried rock and jazz but when I heard Mahler, I knew that’s what I wanted to do.”
“What’s his music like?”
“Complex. Challenging. I had to listen to his pieces—oh, I don’t know, maybe a dozen times before I could hear all the threads he’d woven into them. There’s so much intelligence and power in his symphonies. I needed to work my way up to that level of skill.”
“Are you there yet?”
Cal shrugged one shoulder. “I’m not anywhere yet. Mahler was twenty-eight when he wrote his first symphony. I still have time.” He sipped his wine. “How about you? How did you end up a chief financial officer of a major charitable foundation?”
She looked into her wine glass. Not her favorite conversational topic. “I had my MBA and got my CPA certification. I needed a job and I knew Yvonne from some work she’d done in Adams Morgan—that’s a neighborhood in D.C. It seemed a good fit. I didn’t start out there as the CFO. I was the comptroller at first. When Dave retired, Yvonne and the board felt I could take over.”
She leaned forward. With her hand in her lap, she helped the décolletage of the dress to puddle a bit lower. With Cal sitting to her right, he should have an excellent view of her nearly invisible bra cups and her nipples. Okay, so she’d used a little coral lipstick on them. Just a touch. She wanted Cal to think she was sexy.
His gaze slid south and got stuck. His lips parted and the muscles of his jaw softened. Definitely the look of a man in lust.
Perfect.
She hid her smile. It was funny—she hadn’t felt this way about Bruno. Then again, he mostly saw her naked or in sweats and not a lot in between. And they never left the house unless it was to do a scene at The Club. She wasn’t sure he’d ever seen this dress.
“Uh, what were we talking about?” Cal drank some water, presumably to deal with that sudden rasp in his voice.
Sara looked down, demure and modest. “I think you were going to ask me if I was wearing panties.”
His eyes snapped back to her face. His lips thinned. “And I think you’re topping from the bottom, sub.”
Oops. He had some of his uncle’s mannerisms, that was for sure. When Bruno looked like that, it meant the crop at the very least. Or maybe the cane.