by Watson, Rhea
Two minutes later, I was dead to the world, snoring away in a dreamless sleep.
The pain forgotten.
For now.
2
Jack
A tentative knock on my closed office door startled me out of the mountain of paperwork stacked so high around my desk that I could barely see over it. Frowning, I glanced at my laptop, then down to the little clock in the corner of the screen, and… Oh. Bollocks. Completely lost track of time. How was it three o’clock already?
Ignoring the sudden flash of panic, I hastily shut the laptop and shifted things around to create an opening wide enough to see the twin chairs on the other side of my desk. With that sorted, I buttoned the top clasp on my dress shirt, then adjusted my tie and rolled down the sleeves. Given the circumstances, it was best to look professional despite my monumental failure in that arena just a few short days ago.
“Come in, Miss Clarke.”
This was the absolute last thing I ought to deal with amidst all the other fires snapping at my heels, but I had done the crime. I had broken professional boundaries—touched her, almost kissed her.
And what a kiss it would have been, all forceful and domineering to make an already plump lower lip beautifully swollen.
I’d come so close.
The flames ought to consume me. I deserved to burn.
If she accepted my offer today, I would burn, brightly and very publicly, her harassment report the nail in my career’s coffin. The high council was already furious over the Bjorn incident, and with Mabon still fresh in everyone’s minds, I had two rather serious strikes against me—along with one pending, Fiona Simpson’s death still a secret I’d only shared with Bjorn. Throw in some inappropriate conduct with a young professor and I was finished.
But this was the right thing to do.
The door whooshed open soundlessly, and Alecto Clarke poked her head inside, bringing with her a waft of freshly brewed french roast courtesy of Marigold, the only admin girl Iris had left me for the week.
“Hello, Headmaster.”
I waved her in, catching a flash of Marigold’s golden curls in passing as the witch blitzed around the administration wing all by her lonesome. Honestly. Absolutely ridiculous that under these circumstances, Iris still thought it appropriate to take her staff retreat in Barcelona. Yes, she went every year, scooping up almost all her girls and whisking them away to the Spanish coast for… work, supposedly. Training. Whatever they did out there, I wasn’t privy to it; Iris came with an established reputation at the academy, and even though I outranked her, I’d always felt I couldn’t pry into her private matters with her underlings.
Which was absurd, but that was the dynamic we had set for ourselves since I started, and thus far, it had kept conflict to a minimum.
So, here I was, alone, dealing with one bloody crisis after another, poor Marigold barely shouldering the burden alongside me. Not only had we expelled every student involved in Bjorn Asulf’s kidnapping and attempted murder, but I now had the parents raising hell, their covens and clans demanding answers. The high council had their collective foot shoved so far up my ass that every time I swallowed I tasted leather. Then there was the matter of hiring all new security after such a disastrous breach…
Marigold was stuck sifting through applications today while I contended with the rest. With everything. Without my assistant headmistress.
And now… Alecto Clarke had walked into my office, as requested. Shut the door behind her. Barricaded us inside, the air thick and her aura especially buzzy. Distracting. Beautiful as always, the young witch settled into the chair I gestured to in front of my desk, a little fidgety, cheeks already a delectable shade of pink.
My preferences erred toward darker hues, red and tearstained my all-time favorite, but never mind. It was that kind of thinking that got me into this mess in the first place.
That and my own personal failings. Really. Grabbing her like that, pinning her to the wall as she stared up at me with wide, wanting eyes. After that breach in control, I no longer deserved to carry the Dom title.
“Alecto…” I threaded my hands together and tapped them on my desk, wishing I had gone with the Miss Clarke I’d practiced for the sake of propriety. “I owe it to you not to mince words.”
The height difference between us was purposeful, one of the few things I did to establish a power imbalance with those called into my office, usually students who needed a more serious talking to, occasionally professors and staff who overstepped their bounds. Here, having Alecto blink up at me, brow furrowed, lower lip snagged between her teeth, all deliciously submissive and lost—fuck, she was perfection.
I should have called Marigold in too, but there wasn’t a chance in hell I’d let anyone know what had transpired between us unless Alecto filed a report.
Which… a part of me almost hoped she did.
I should be punished for—
“Sir?”
For loving the way that word tumbled from her lips, all light and airy, innocent and full of promise.
“What happened between us in the stairwell on Samhain…” With stress at an all-time high now, the siren song of Dominant-submissive play had been much harder to resist. The promise of complete release—the disconnect it offered from all your problems—was such a gift. Some sadists entered the lifestyle because they lusted after pain, desperate to let loose on someone who would gladly take it. I fell into it because of my own proclivities, yes, but when I realized I could finally just be, just exist without a million thoughts and concerns whizzing around my brain… I never looked back. But now it had screwed me in the worst way possible, and if karma had its day, I’d never play out a scene again. “First, let me apologize—”
“Headmaster—”
“It was wildly inappropriate,” I insisted, lifting my voice just enough to quiet her but not so loud that an undoubtedly eavesdropping Marigold would hear. Clearing my throat, I leaned forward and stared into those amber gemstones with all the sincerity I could muster. “I’m so sorry, Miss Clarke.” Better than Alecto, even if it left a strange taste in my mouth to shirk that intimacy. “If you wish to file a report with the high council about the incident, you have my full support. Please know that I won’t stand in your way, nor will you face any repercussions for doing so.”
She shook her head frantically, shifting to the edge of her seat. “No, no, I would never—”
“Please don’t feel frightened of me.” Women seldom reported incidents like these, especially against their professional superiors, because they feared the fallout. They feared ruining their career, their reputation—everything. Just the thought of Alecto trudging through that sort of inner turmoil made me physically ill. “The last thing I want is for you to—”
“I’m not afraid of you.”
She might have gulped after, but she sounded so bloody frank that I found myself at a rare loss for words. Oh, and a little hard, too. Shit.
Alecto licked her lips, then tugged her chair up to my desk so she could plop her elbows on it, sandwiched between the stacks of endless paperwork, her cheeks on fire but her expression adorably serious, like she was gearing up for something. When coherent thought did trickle back into my brain, I kept it to myself, allowing her a beat of quiet to think, possibly even to rethink.
“What happened… I…” Her blush sharpened, unmistakable now as her eyes danced around my office. Gods, what was she about to say? No. No. Please don’t look at me like that. “I… I liked it.”
Fuck.
“It was inappropriate,” she added slowly, thoughtfully, drumming her fingers on my desk with a frown, “given our professional relationship.”
“Very inappropriate.” The correction came out all stern and Dom-like, which seemed to make her squirm. Sighing, I tried my best to sound softer. “I can assure you, it will never happen again—”
“But I can’t stop thinking about it,” Alecto told me, risking a quick glance up to my eyes, meeting them for a mo
ment before hers fell to my unusually cluttered desk. “About your… your…” She motioned halfheartedly to my hand, as if I needed the reminder of how it felt to cuff her delicate throat and squeeze. “I-I don’t really understand what I’m… feeling, but…”
Trailing off with a sigh, she looked to me like so many submissives looked to their Dom for guidance. Not because they depended on us for everything. Not because they were worthless or useless without us, but because they liked the security we provided, the comfort found in our response, in our care.
And we liked giving all that and more.
“We…” Right. Okay. Although once again we veered dangerously close to scandal, I could be upstanding and professional in the way I handled this. If anything, giving her the full picture, making her understand all of it by being clear and open, could very well protect her in the end. “We seem to have fallen into a Dominant-submissive courtship… quite unexpectedly, I might add, and certainly not intentionally on my part.”
She opened and closed her mouth a few times, soundless, until: “A what?”
Her innocence would be my downfall. Honestly. “Well, dominance and submission are subsects of the BDSM community—”
“No, no, I know what they are.” Cheeks still flaming, Alecto clapped her hands to them to block the redness, possibly even to remove her blushes from the interaction. Smart. “I didn’t grow up under a rock. I just… What do you mean by courtship?”
It had been years since I fell so seamlessly into one. It seemed a shame to sully it with all the behind-the-scenes technicalities, but she deserved to know what had been brewing between us, if only for her own peace of mind.
“Sometimes…” I hesitated. Once again, here I was, steamrolling professional boundaries, propriety miles behind and a public spectacle at the cost of my career ahead. Screw it. This was my doing. No sense abandoning her in a sea of unanswered questions. “Sometimes potential pairings feel each other out beforehand—see if it’s a good fit.”
Alecto’s eyebrows shot up. “Romantically?”
“Not necessarily,” I said swiftly. Best shoot down the notion of romance before a whole new set of issues sprang up between us. “I’ve played with many submissives over the years outside of romantic relationships. We were just, er, consenting adults who dug the same kink, as it were.”
Hard to believe I was having this particular conversation—out loud, in real life—with one of my professors.
And she hadn’t run out of here screaming. Nor did she stare up at me now with eyes that screamed Bloody pervert!
I knew the look. I’d seen it before when trying to introduce my preferences into a rare and usually fleeting relationship. The society witches my family deemed appropriate to inherit the Clemonte name had always been so scandalized at the mention of dominance. Submission never factored into the conversation after that, and it was vanilla sex, lovely but boring, until the inevitable breakup.
It had been easier to play with subs who knew the rules—who weren’t looking for more than a very specific type of friendship.
Alecto showed no signs of past paramours’ discomfort. No fear. No disgust. Caution, perhaps, as she settled back in the chair, hands off my desk and folded together on her lap. Curiosity, certainly, given the nibbling of her lower lip, the blush on her cheeks a tell that her mind was working through more salacious topics.
Although I enjoyed watching her most of the time, this afternoon I did so with more intensity than usual. If I caught even a flicker of distress, this conversation ended. Period.
Mind you, it was rather disconcerting to have a man, your boss, stare you down, all calculating and silent. So, I stood, always keeping her in the corner of my eye or studying her in the windowpanes, the grey outdoors offering a clearer reflection than usual. Snatching my wand from the top of a precarious parchment stack, I drifted over to the tiny coffee bar under one of the windows, then tapped the pot while uttering a simple heating charm. Seconds later, the water started to boil inside, bubbling away as I readied two cups for some afternoon tea.
Damn. No cream or sugar in the snack cupboard. Yet another thing Iris had dumped on me before she flitted off to Spain.
“I hope chamomile is all right. I’ve just got the bag—”
“I’ve always been interested in it,” Alecto blurted as though she hadn’t heard a thing I’d said, something that would have earned her a chastising smack to the backside in another life. Not this one. Never this one. She frowned down at her clasped hands, making it difficult to tell if she was sharing with me or just thinking out loud. “The lifestyle, I guess… Nothing too over-the-top.”
Back to her but still watching in the window, I tipped boiling water into two china teacups, each white with blue-and-gold filigree around the rim. “I’m afraid my brand isn’t exactly for beginners.”
“No?”
“I suppose that’s a bit dismissive of beginner submissives,” I said as I doubled up on tea bags, one in each hand, dunking them nine times—my preference for the perfect flavor—before discarding them. “But I indulge in sadism play.” Bags tossed in the bin, I carefully picked up the little china saucers, then returned to my desk and passed Alecto’s over. She accepted, as I knew she would, with a silent nod, eyes unfocused, lost in thought. Once I was back in my chair, a newfound buoyancy grew in my chest at the fact that finally—finally—someone was willing to have a frank, open, nonjudgmental conversation about this. Just the thought gave me the courage to add, “I like to inflict pain.”
“Oh. Sure.” Alecto’s eyes rounded, cradling the saucer with one hand, the other with a dainty finger curled around the teacup’s handle. “Like, uhm…”
“Physical pain,” I said smoothly—confidently, almost, like this really was an earnest Dom-sub courtship and we had already sprinted through the first lap. Dangerous territory, thoughts like that, but a part of me couldn’t help it. I spent all my life being careful, cautious, thoughtful. Annoyingly meticulous. With her, in this moment, it was just… natural. Free-flowing. Easy. Simple. I liked pain. I liked tearstained cheeks and squeaky cries and hoarse begging and red marks that would last for days.
And then I liked to end it by giving my submissive a screaming orgasm amidst all that pain.
Some called it sick. Twisted. Fucked-up.
I found it relaxing. Distracting. A healthy, and dare I say, fun way to disconnect from the burdens of the real world—if only for an hour or two.
“Not mental or emotional pain,” I clarified after a tentative sip of tea, Alecto still gawking at me from across the desk. In my experience, the pain I inflicted on the physical body was nowhere near as brutal—damage-wise—as that done by Doms who tormented mentally or emotionally. Perhaps I just wasn’t skilled enough to do it, but it wasn’t my thing. No lasting damage. No scars. Nothing a submissive would carry with them outside of a scene… Well, no longer than a week, tops, even less so if they let me use a magical balm during aftercare. “Some Doms only indulge in that—mental and emotional torture. Not my scene, I’m afraid.”
Alecto finally risked a big sip, grimacing: still too hot, little one. “Why?”
“Well, they—”
“No.” She set her tea on her lap rather primly, her posture perfect for play. “Why do you like pain?”
Why did anyone like anything they did for sexual gratification? While there were probably countless studies out there on the specifics, I’d never bothered to psychoanalyze myself. I liked what I liked, and everyone else could just piss off.
“I only like delivering pain, not experiencing it.” Though I had, in the early years, asked a few Dominant friends to do to me what I did to subs. It was only fair that I knew precisely what they felt—and when to stop, even with the stubborn ones who refused to use their safeword.
Unfortunately, that didn’t seem to be the answer she was looking for, and when Alecto’s full lips parted again, perhaps to press harder, perhaps to clarify her intentions, I cleared my throat and tapped my fi
nger on the desk. Loud. Hard. Centering her focus to that and not her curiosity.
“I’m not exactly comfortable delving into my sexual preferences in greater detail—”
“Oh, gods, of course,” she babbled, cheeks flaming once more, tea sloshing dangerously close to the cup’s curled lip as she shifted about in her seat. “No, no, of course, I’m so sorry—”
“I just find playing with a consensual partner relaxing,” I told her, hand up to stop her rambling apology in its tracks. Curiosity ought to be encouraged in all things, but I had no problem politely curbing it when it cut a little too deep for comfort.
Her eyebrows shot up at that, perhaps at just the thought of relaxation while physically hurting another person, but in theory, the other person wanted it. That was the thrill. That was the game.
“It sounds ridiculous, I know, but that’s the honest truth.” As much as I was willing to give, anyway. After another sip, the water’s temperature more palatable, I eased back into my chair—something I seldom did with someone else in the office. This wasn’t a place to slump and slouch and relax. This room, this desk, this very chair, was the heart of authority at Root Rot, but it felt wrong to lord over her for this. Just for a moment, we were almost equals, Alecto and me. “I’ve made a career of dealing in stress. Every job, every step—stressful. I carry a lot, always have…” The Clemonte name promised no less, most of us barely functioning disasters behind closed doors, addiction, anxiety, and depression rampant throughout the family tree. “If I can find something to alleviate that, just for a little while, why not embrace it? I find all of it a comforting release.”
That one little word—release—triggered a blush of epic proportions, but I pretended not to notice, allowing her a moment to compose herself by taking an unnecessarily long gulp of tea. By the time I set the cup down, Alecto seemed more centered, no longer fidgeting or shuffling or overtly avoiding eye contact. Comfortable as she might come across with the subject matter, she still didn’t understand. None of them did until the first strike of the whip, the first swing of a flogger—the first cruel bite of a nipple clamp.