Mastering Lexie (Stronghold Book 4)

by Golden Angel

  It was one thing for a submissive to give up control for a scene. Scenes were short, with finite boundaries. Lexie could obviously give herself over for a scene. She trusted Michael, that was clear. But would she trust Patrick enough to give him control over more? To let him set her tasks for the day and accept punishment for whatever she didn’t complete? He wanted a stay-at-home woman, but only if that’s what she wanted too. He didn’t consider himself sexist, he absolutely knew that women could manage just as well as any man to whatever task they set their minds to, but for his woman… he needed one who would thrive under his domination, allow him to dictate rules and structure for her day-to-day life, and accept being cherished and protected in the way that he needed to.

  Granted, he’d already done some of that with Lexie. The problem was, sometimes she accepted his authority and sometimes she didn’t. He didn’t want to kill her spark or have her smother her own desires in deference to his. Their desires needed to match up. Not just sexual desires, but what they wanted out of life and a relationship. Jake knew what kind of relationship Patrick wanted, and if he thought that Patrick was taking advantage of his little sister…

  Not that Patrick ever would. He was going to have to approach this carefully. See what Lexie would actually go along with under the guise of ‘training.’ But there were going to be some damn firm boundaries, and he was going to set them down at the first opportunity. While he might be willing to scene with Lexie, to guide her exploration of BDSM, there was definitely, absolutely not going to be any sex.

  Period.

  Chapter 3

  She could definitely get used to being carried around by Patrick. Even though she'd finally come out of the warm, fuzzy, happy place she'd been in, the big man kept cuddling her. She wasn't about to stop him. The only way this could have been better was if he'd done the scene with her, instead of Master Michael. But at least he'd taken over. When she'd come out of her post-orgasm daze, she'd been in Patrick's arms, which was both unexpected and thrilling.

  The big dummy cared. Even if he wouldn't admit it yet.

  Speaking of Master Michael...

  "Did she drive herself here?" Patrick asked as Master Michael approached them in the aftercare area. Lexie rolled her eyes. Like she couldn't answer that herself. But she didn't speak up, because if she did, Patrick might stop the cuddling. She was going to soak up as much of this as she could.

  "No, I brought both her and Angel," Michael said, a little smile curving on his face as he looked down at her affectionately. He coughed. "Jessica and the others came with Olivia. I think they all knew their Doms would want to take them home."

  Guilt made Lexie wince as she glanced over to where Adam was just now helping Angel stand on wobbly legs. He still looked pissed. Also horny. Angel's face was flushed bright red, and she clung to her boyfriend. Jessica was being held by Chris, her tear-stained face buried in his shoulder, while Justin cleaned up the bench they'd had her on.

  Her friends had been punished because of her. Granted, it wasn't like she forced them into it, but she still felt guilty. It really sucked that she'd needed so much help just to get down here. She was going to have to do something to make it up to them.

  She sucked in a quick inhale of breath as Adam turned Angel around, so that Lexie could see her bright red backside. He cupped his hands over her ass, digging into her roasted cheeks as he kissed her furiously. Lexie's pussy clenched a little. Okay, so she felt bad, but that was still hot as hell. Geezus though... Angel's ass looked like it was on fire. Jessica's was probably about the same.

  Yeah, she was going to have to do something really amazing to make it up to them.

  "I'm taking Lexie home," Patrick said, standing. Lexie wriggled slightly, wrapping her arms around his neck, to make herself feel more secure. Not that she thought Patrick would drop her on purpose, but her position had just felt slightly precarious.

  On their way out, Patrick swung by the bar to let Andrew and Olivia know that they were in charge of the club for the rest of the night… Olivia winked at Lexie, which both of the men ignored. She gave her friend a blissful smile in return. At least Olivia wasn't going to be punished, Lexie thought with relief. It's not like anyone could give a Domme a spanking.

  ******

  Patrick could feel Lexie's eyes on him as he drove her home. This was the first time he was actually going to see her new place. Not that it was that new. She'd been living there for months, but none of the guys had ever been invited to it. Something that had chafed a little, especially since he'd dropped plenty of hints that he'd like to see the place.

  He'd driven by the apartment building before, and he didn't entirely approve of the neighborhood, especially since she was living on her own. But, since she was living on her own, he knew that it was what she could afford. Since her main source of income was her day job as a receptionist at a doctor's office, it wasn't like he could just give her a raise so that she would have enough to move to a better neighborhood. Giving her enough money to do so, while she was working only part-time at Stronghold, would have been ludicrous. Not to mention, his other front-desk workers would have, rightfully, staged a revolt if they’d found out about the pay difference.

  It was a twenty-five minute drive between Stronghold and her building, but the silence in the car seemed to be growing heavier by the minute.

  She seemed to be waiting for him to say something, and, for once, he had no idea what to say. Normally, after a scene, he'd be asking the submissive about her experience, but he really did not want to hear her gush about how great Michael had been. He'd been able to see for himself how much she'd enjoyed the scene. Definitely not something he was interested in discussing.

  With Lexie, they'd usually talk about anything and everything. Hell, he'd known her for years, and even knowing that there was a growing mutual attraction between them, things had never been this awkward.

  Plus, even though he wanted to talk about where they were going to go from here, he didn't want to have that conversation while he was driving. That was the kind of conversation that needed to happen when he wasn't distracted, and he could focus on her. See her reactions. In the dark, in a car, while he needed to be paying attention to the road was not the ideal.

  So they sat in silence.

  And he distracted himself with thoughts on how to get back at Olivia for her part in tonight's... activities.

  The submissives were all being punished by their Doms. Obviously not something that would work for Olivia. There was no way he could keep her out of the club either, not even temporarily. She hadn't actually done anything wrong, after all. So he was going to have to get creative. Like most of his friends, Olivia had her stints as a Dungeon Monitor and, since she was still single, running Introduction scenes.

  A slow smile curved Patrick's face.

  Usually he tried to match up the dominants and submissives by interest and personality when it came to the Introduction scenes. Olivia preferred strong submissives, ones that liked to challenge their dominant and needed to be pushed into submitting. So when it came to the Introduction scenes, Mistresses Lisa and Erin usually took the eager-to-please submissives - the ones that drove Olivia a little nuts, because they bored her.

  She was not going to be pleased with her next few Introduction scenes.

  "What's so funny?"

  Lexie spoke softly, but it was so silent in the car that it seemed almost loud. He coughed, just realizing that he'd been chuckling under his breath a little at the thought of Olivia's displeasure.

  "Nothing that concerns you," he said, a little more roughly than he'd meant to. They both fell silent again, and he inwardly cursed himself. Sighing a little, he turned onto her street. "Just thinking about some business with the club."

  "Oh. Okay."

  Surprisingly, she sounded a little unsure of herself. As if she was also having trouble finding the right words to say to him. Well, at least he knew he wasn't alone.

  When he parked in front of her buil
ding, she started to move to get out, and then jumped in surprise when he turned off the engine to the car.

  "What are you doing?" she asked, obviously not expecting him to get out with her. The streetlights around them gave him just enough light to see her expression.

  "I'm coming in, we need to talk."

  Her mouth opened and closed. Then her chin tilted up, making him want to grin. The defiance on her face was clear enough. Obviously she thought he was going to tell her not to come back to Stronghold. Good to know he wasn't becoming entirely predictable, but he wasn't sure that she'd like his conditions, either.

  The amusement grew as she flounced up the stairs in front of him. Fortunately, no one came out of their apartments as they walked, so there was no one else to see the way her skirt fluttered around the tops of her thighs. Practically exposing her ass cheeks.

  As soon as he walked into her apartment, the amusement faded quickly.

  "What the fuck, Lex?"

  It was Spartan. Practically bare. It didn't look like someone had lived in it for a week, much less months. The apartment consisted of one big room, almost an efficiency except for the fact that there was a tiny galley kitchen that he could see through a doorway. In the far corner, what looked like two mattresses were stacked on top of each other, serving as a bed. A laptop was plugged into the wall next to it. There was a small table with two mismatched - and rickety looking - wooden chairs, seated facing the huge television. There was one other chair, also facing the television, which Patrick recognized from the Standishes' house. It was an oversized, red and gold striped armchair that had seen better days, but which Lexie had always been particularly attached to. The television was the only thing he could see that was worth anything.

  Boxes were piled against one wall, which explained why she didn't have any of her pictures or decor out. She hadn't unpacked yet. Maybe she considered the clothing that she'd strewn all over the place to be decoration.

  "What?" she asked, sounding unconcerned as she kicked off her shoes and tossed her purse off to the side. Granted, she kicked her shoes off into what appeared to be the "shoe pile" and dropped her purse next to several others, but that sure as hell didn't match up with Patrick's idea of neat and clean. Hell, it didn't match up with Lexie's either from what he knew.

  "How can you live like this?"

  ******

  Ooooo, the big guy was pissed. Which should really tick her off, since it wasn't like he got a say in how she lived (not to mention that he was totally misjudging the situation), but instead, it just got her kind of hot. Yeah, she was a little sick like that. She'd just finished a scene with another man, and here she was hoping that Patrick would give her a spanking for a little messiness.

  The way he was eyeing her clothes - that were admittedly all over the place - kind of reminded her of the way he looked when she'd stripped down in his office. There was definitely a little tic going on in his jaw. The one that he got when he was getting super cranky. Not angry, cranky. There was a vast difference. Lexie didn't like actually making him angry. Making Patrick angry made her feel all sick and nauseated inside. However, making him a cranky, muttering ball of pent-up grumpy? Yeah, she liked to do that. Push his buttons. Play with that famous control of his. Angel had told her that making Adam grumpy made her hot too, so at least Lexie wasn't alone in her perversion.

  "Like what?" she asked, answering his question with a question as she batted her eyes innocently, even though she knew exactly what he was talking about.

  "Like… this," he said, with a frustrated sweep of his hand, indicating the entire inside of her home, as he moved further into the space. He took up a lot of room, making the small apartment feel even smaller as he placed himself in the very center of it. With his leather pants, black shirt, and that sexy scar going down the side of his face, he looked completely out of place, practically tip-toeing around the clothes on the floor. "It looks like you've just thrown your clothes everywhere. Your room never looked like this before."

  "My mom would have grounded me if my room had looked like this," Lexie said with a snort, heading for the kitchen. If Patrick was going to hang around berating her, instead of doing something more interesting to show his displeasure, then she was going to have a glass of wine while he did it. She kicked a few shirts out of the way to make a path, and she swore she could actually feel Patrick's eyes boring into her back.

  Truthfully, her apartment rarely looked quite this bad; she hadn't been able to find the shoes that she'd wanted to wear tonight, and so she'd had to open up a couple of the many boxes that she hadn't gotten around to unpacking yet, in order to find them. Plus, putting together an outfit always meant trying on a couple of possibilities, and she hadn't had time to pick everything up and put it in the closet before Master Michael had picked her up to go to Stronghold. She didn't mind having clothes all around for a night or two, as long as nothing was actually dirty in the house. Her kitchen and bathroom were clean, that was what counted.

  "Why haven't you unpacked yet? You've lived here for months." Patrick stood framed in the doorway of her tiny kitchen, blocking her way out. Lexie just shrugged as she opened up one of her cabinets, pulled out two of her four wineglasses, and picked up the bottle of wine that was sitting on her counter. It was half-empty because she liked to have a glass every evening while she was winding down, watching television from her chair.

  "I've got the most important stuff unpacked," she said, nodding her head at the kitchen cabinets before handing him a glass of wine. He took it, but just held it as she took a sip of hers, both of his arms still crossed over his chest. "You know how it is. I got the stuff that I used on an everyday basis put away, and then things just got busy. Two jobs, hanging out with friends... most of the stuff that's still in boxes are clothes for the winter, shoes that I don't wear that often, and little knickknacks. No point in unpacking those until I have some furniture to put them on."

  "Where is your furniture? You can't tell me you parents didn't let you take any."

  Lexie rolled her eyes, leaning her hip against the kitchen counter since it was obvious Patrick wasn't going to move aside and let her out of the narrow space. Her kitchen was just a narrow galley with counters and cabinets on either side, with a stove and a fridge. There wasn't even a dishwasher.

  "Yeah, but I wanted to pick out my own. And I knew that if I brought any to use, I would never get around to actually getting my own. This way I'm motivated to save up my money for the stuff that I need," she said, with a grin. It was a good way of getting around her tendency to spend money on things like going out with friends and actually focus on getting the stuff that she wanted. Having furniture to "make-do," for her, would mean that she would end up making do with the same stuff for years. Living like this gave her a lot more motivation to save her money for the big pieces. She almost had enough for the gorgeous queen-sized storage bed that she'd fallen in love with at a discount furniture store. Yeah it was discount, but it was still pretty. Plus the extra storage underneath the actual bed would come in handy, and the salesman had said that it only needed a mattress, not a box spring. Since she already had two queen-sized mattresses, that wasn't a problem.

  Patrick sighed, uncrossing his arms, and he took a gulp of his wine. After another moment, he took another gulp. Normally he didn’t drink wine so quickly, she must really be getting to him. Hiding her smile behind her own glass, Lexie took another sip of hers. She'd thrown enough of her "weird logic" his way over the years that he never bothered to argue with her about it anymore. "What are you doing tomorrow?"

  The segue was so unexpected that Lexie was caught completely off guard. She blinked, feeling like she'd just spun around really quickly. "Um... nothing until the evening, and then I'm going over to Angel's for some girl time. Well," she amended, grimacing a bit, "if she still wants me to."

  "She'll be fine," Patrick said, with the unconcerned air of a Dom who didn't think anything of turning a naughty subbie’s ass bright red. "Tomorrow I wa
nt you to clean up this place, and unpack everything that's clothing or shoes. What time are you going to be at Angel's?" He placed the half-full wineglass down on the counter as Lexie frowned at him, her ire picking up.

  "Six o'clock, but-"

  "Good, I'll be by around five thirty then."

  "Excuse me," Lexie said, heatedly, as she put down her own wineglass a little harder than usual. The liquid sloshed over the side, but she didn't care. She was too busy walking after Patrick who had turned his back and started to leave as soon as he'd made his infuriating announcement. "Exactly what makes you think you have the right to tell me what to do in my own apartment?"

  Patrick stopped and turned, his eyes suddenly so hot and hard and intense that it literally knocked the breath from her body as she skidded to a halt, staring up at him. That was not how she expected him to be looking at her right now. The air around them seemed to tighten, as if his authority was a visceral thing hovering like an aura over his body.

  "If you want to return to Stronghold and be trained by me as a submissive, then when I come here at five thirty tomorrow, this apartment will be clean and most of those boxes will be unpacked."

  The air in her lungs was gone. Sucked away by a strange mix of excitement and trepidation and joy and fear.

  "Do you understand me, Pixie?"

  She nodded, and Patrick frowned at her. Fuck. Her pussy clenched even as her gut swirled with anxiety at the expression on his face.

  "First lesson, Pixie. When I ask you a question, you will respond verbally, and you will call me Sir."

  "Yes, Sir." Air that she didn't know she had trapped in her lungs came out in a sudden rush, as her body finally released enough tension for her to talk. As if it had been waiting for his permission.

  "Good girl." Those hard eyes warmed, and he gently touched her cheek before suddenly turning and striding out the door. His voice drifted behind him even as the door closed. "I'll see you tomorrow."