by Sherri Hayes
Her ultra-serious expression caused me to chuckle. “I think you’re safe there. If I ever hurt her, there would be a line of people waiting to do me serious harm. My friends Lily and Logan would be at the front of the line.”
Ross asked Brianna a question I couldn’t hear, and she nodded. The next thing I knew, they were hugging. Brianna smiled, and practically skipped back to my side.
“Feeling better?”
She nodded.
Ross joined our little group and, in another turn of events, held out his hand. I reached around Brianna and took his offering. “I’m still not sure about this whole relationship between you two, but as long as you don’t prevent Anna from seeing us, I’ll agree to keep my opinions to myself.”
“Thank you.”
We both dropped our arms, and I rested my hands on Brianna’s shoulders.
“We should probably go.” Ross focused on Brianna. “I have a meeting next week, but Jade will pick you up Wednesday and take you to your appointment.”
“That won’t be necessary. Brianna wants me to meet Dr. Perkins, and I’m taking Wednesday off.”
Ross frowned but didn’t argue. He looked pointedly at Brianna. “We’ll call you.”
Brianna nodded, and we saw them out. I doubted all was mended, but it was a start. As with any relationship, it needed to be built brick by brick. Like it or not, Ross and I were in each other’s lives because of our love of Brianna. We were going to have to figure out how to function in each other’s space without constantly trying to mark our territory. Brianna had made her choice. It was up to both of us to accept it.
Chapter 29
Stephan
Nearly two days had passed since Brianna’s confrontation with Ross upon her return from her therapist. We’d had several conversations between that time—most of them revolving around my relationship with Sarah. No matter how many times I tried to reassure her that the feelings I had for Sarah couldn’t compare to the ones I had for her, she still had doubts. I didn’t think it was that she didn’t believe me, but more that she didn’t believe that much in herself. Either way it was disheartening.
After spending some time answering e-mails, I came downstairs to see how her preparations for dinner were coming, but I didn’t see her anywhere. She was supposed to have gotten dinner started and then spent some time reading. The last thirty-six hours had been more stressful for her than what I would have liked, and I had a feeling dinner was going to be even more so for her.
“Brianna?”
She poked her head up over the counter.
I leaned to the side so that I could get a better look at her. She was kneeling on the floor. Her hair was pulled back, but I could see strands that were plastered against her face from sweat. This was not preparing dinner. Nor was it reading.
Taking a step closer, I zeroed in on a bucket and what looked like a scrub brush in her hand. I frowned. “Stop what you’re doing and come over here.”
She froze, and her gaze remained focused on the floor as she rushed over to where I was standing.
I stood with my arms crossed as she waited about a foot in front of me. Yesterday during one of our conversations, I’d suggested inviting Sarah over for dinner so that Brianna could meet her. Brianna had agreed but also asked if Lily could come, too. It was a simple request, and I was thrilled she’d spoken up. I’d called Logan right away and invited him and Lily to join us this evening.
What I hadn’t expected was for Brianna to go into some sort of cleaning overdrive today. At first, I didn’t think much of it. Brianna liked to clean—she’d done so almost every day when she’d lived with me before. I’d made some phone calls while she went around the house tidying up this morning. As far as I was concerned, aside from dinner, that was the end of it. Over lunch, I’d complimented her on the good job she’d done and commented that she could spend the rest of the afternoon taking it easy. Apparently Brianna had different ideas.
She stood before me with her hands behind her back and her head down, looking guilty.
“Look at me.” I waited until she looked up, although she didn’t lift her head. “What were you doing just now?”
“Um.”
“Brianna.” I knew perfectly well what she was doing, but I wanted her to tell me.
“Cleaning the floor, Sir.”
If I wasn’t so upset, I may have found her reaction to my displeasure slightly amusing. As it was, the fact that she knew what she was doing wouldn’t make me happy only irritated me more. She’d been going nonstop for the last six hours. Sarah, Lily, and Logan were coming for dinner, not the queen of England. While I’d not made her afternoon activities a command, I’d thought I’d been clear that I didn’t want her to spend it on more cleaning. “On your hands and knees?”
“I didn’t want to miss anything,” she whispered.
I didn’t say anything for several seconds. She hunched her shoulders and lowered her gaze. “Go kneel on the floor by my chair, and stay there until I say otherwise.”
She did as she was instructed.
Once she was kneeling beside my chair, I walked into the kitchen where Brianna had been cleaning. There was a scrub brush, a bucket full of soapy water, and a towel lying on the floor. I shook my head, dumped the water, and put everything away. She was overcompensating. I understood her anxiety, but I wasn’t going to allow her to keep this up.
Confident things were back to normal in the kitchen, I strolled into the living room and took a seat in my chair. Motioning for Brianna to move closer, I guided her head onto my lap. Laying my hand on top of her head, I began stroking her hair. Little by little, I felt her relax.
Brianna was stressing herself out over this meeting. I wasn’t exactly sure why. “Tell me why you were cleaning the floor.”
She released a deep breath and snuggled deeper into my lap. “I wanted everything to be perfect.”
I thought about that for a minute as I looked around. Everything was in its place. She’d vacuumed and dusted earlier today. I had to be missing something. “Why do you think everything needs to be perfect?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes you do.”
It took several minutes for her to answer. “She was your first. She took care of you. I wanted . . . I wanted her to see that I could take care of you, too.”
Her confession caused me to pause, and when I stopped moving my hand through her hair, she tensed up. I resumed my motion. “Relax.”
It took some time, but eventually she did relax.
I sat there and thought about what she’d said before responding. “Maybe I didn’t explain this as well as I should have. My relationship with Sarah—if you want to call it that—wasn’t anything like what we have. It can’t even be compared. The only times she took care of me, as you put it, was on the weekends when we were in Dom and sub roles. Even then, it was relegated to what we’d agreed upon. She never went out of her way to do something special for me unless it was purely based on our friendship alone.”
Lifting her head, I turned Brianna to face me. “There was no love. Sarah never took pleasure in serving me outside the bedroom.”
“She didn’t take care of you?” Brianna looked doubtful.
I rubbed my thumb along her cheek. “No. Not in the way you do.”
Brianna was quiet as she processed this. I’d thought I’d made it clear to her after last night’s talk that Sarah and I had only been friends with benefits. Granted, I’d focused more on generalities than details. I’d explained how we met, our friendship, and how we’d decided to start playing together. Sarah and I trusted and respected each other. That was all. There were no other feelings involved other than physical gratification.
“Talk to me.”
“She let you do things to her that you can’t do with me.”
I cocked my head to the side, observing her expression, and something dawned on me. “Brianna, are you jealous?”
It took her a minute to answer, and when she did, she l
ooked as if she were waiting for an anvil to drop. “Yes.”
Sighing, I leaned down and guided her up into my arms. Once she was situated in my lap, I took hold of her face and brought it directly in front of mine so that our noses were touching. “You have nothing, and no one, to be jealous of, sweetheart. I love you. And I know you’re worried about the sexual stuff, but you don’t have to be. We’ll figure it out along the way.”
“But you could do that stuff with her. Maybe . . .” She pressed her lips tightly together, and I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like the next words out of her mouth. “Maybe I could do the stuff you want.”
The pulse in her neck raced under my fingers, and I could see the fear in her eyes even as she spoke the words.
“No.”
Instead of calming her down, my response only made her heart rate speed up and her breathing become shallower. “No?”
“Take a deep breath, Brianna.”
She closed her eyes for a moment and did as I said.
“Another one.”
This time, she watched me as she inhaled a lungful of air and released it.
“Good girl. I want you to keep breathing slow and deep, understand?”
She nodded.
“Are you dissatisfied with our sex?”
Her eyes widened. “No!”
I smiled. “Good. Neither am I.”
“But . . .”
“But?”
Brianna glanced down before meeting my gaze again. “But you want more.”
“In time, yes. We can take it slow, though, and we’ll talk about it ahead of time.” I brushed the hair away from her face, and made sure she was looking at me before I said my next words. “I plan on having you in my life—and my bed—for a very long time, Brianna. There will be plenty of time for us to try new things together.”
“You shouldn’t have to wait for me.”
“Shouldn’t that be my decision?”
She went quiet. “What if I want to?”
Although I knew Brianna was nowhere near ready for any type of intense play, I decided to humor her. “Okay, what would you like to do?”
I saw the wheels turning in her head. She knew I’d want an answer after she’d laid down the proverbial gauntlet.
Suddenly her eyes lit up. “The rope.”
“You want me to tie you up?” Although I was a bit skeptical, I would hear her out.
She nodded minutely. “You like that, don’t you?”
“Sometimes I do, yes. And how would you like me to bind you?”
“However you want.”
“Hmm.” I needed to make a phone call.
Placing a hard kiss on Brianna’s lips, I leaned back, separating us a little. “Do you have everything prepped for dinner?”
She nodded.
I’d told her to keep it simple, so she was making some sort of pasta dish with salad. The last thing I wanted on top of everything else was Brianna spending hours today in the kitchen. She needed to decompress, and reading always did that for her.
“Good. I want you to go to your room and take a nice long bath for the next hour. Take your book with you, and you can spend the time reading. After that, you may return to the kitchen. That should still give you plenty of time to finish before everyone arrives.”
Brianna looked down, her guilty expression returning. “Yes, Sir.”
I patted her leg, and we both stood. Bending down, I gave her a soft, lingering kiss, which she readily returned. I was tempted to change my plans and spend the next hour relaxing her in a very different way, but I held strong. Somehow.
Standing to my full height, I waited as Brianna left the room.
Once I could no longer see her, I headed upstairs to call Logan. Since I’d had all my BDSM items removed from my condo, I didn’t have any of my Shibari books. If Brianna was really interested in giving rope-play a try, then I was going to do this with as much forethought as possible. I wasn’t going to let her go into this blind. The last thing either of us needed was for her to have one of her panic attacks while she was bound.
I knew it might still happen, even with the preparation ahead of time, but I was hoping the extra effort would pay off. Maybe we would both be pleasantly surprised.
Brianna
As instructed, I spent an hour in the bathtub reading—or trying to read. I only made it through one chapter, and it wasn’t a very long one. The book was interesting enough, but I couldn’t focus on it. My entire body vibrated with anxiety over meeting Sarah—Stephan’s ex-girlfriend.
I knew he said they were only friends, and aside from their sexual relationship in college, that was all they had ever been. What I couldn’t understand was why? Stephan was wonderful. He was kind and loving, and he went out of his way to help others. Of course she would want to be with him. Wouldn’t she?
When my hour was up, I bolted out of the bathtub. As quickly as I could, I dried off and put on clean clothes. Stephan had said not to dress up, and I didn’t want to disappoint him again, so I selected a pair of jeans and a nice T-shirt.
Dressed, I made a beeline for the kitchen. Stephan was nowhere to be seen, so I assumed he was upstairs. Something major was going on at the foundation with some money that had been stolen. He’d explained a little of it to me, and it sounded like a huge mess. Since I’d been home, he’d spent more time on his laptop than I’d ever seen before. I understood, though. He was the boss, and he wanted to make sure everything was handled properly.
Most of the time he’d disappear for an hour or two upstairs after dinner, and while he was gone, he’d give me some sort of assignment in my journal. Sometimes it was easy, like writing about the one place in the world I most wanted to visit. Other times it would be things prompted by either my previous journal entries or our talks. Those were usually harder, like Friday night when I’d written about what happened with Cal that afternoon. He’d wanted me to think about what I might have done had Jade not been with me and if he’d not shown up when he did. I wasn’t sure if I would have been brave enough to say anything if Jade hadn’t been there.
As I started assembling dinner, I thought over my first week back with Stephan. Some things had changed, but most hadn’t. We’d had sex every night so far, but it had been pretty tame. He was still in control of everything, but it was almost as if he were waiting for me to break at any moment. I missed the new things he used to do to me. Although my fear always reared its ugly head, I knew deep down Stephan wouldn’t do anything to hurt me, and I wanted to do these things for him.
That was why I’d brought up the rope. I couldn’t forget how his eyes lit up months ago when I’d mentioned it. He wanted to tie me up, and I had to admit that I was curious. Everything else was different with him, and I was hoping that would be, too.
At ten minutes to five, Stephan came down the stairs smiling. I turned my head to smile back at him before returning to my task. He walked over to where I was standing and wrapped his arms around my waist from behind, burying his face in my neck. “Something smells good.”
“Thank you.”
He hummed. “Anything you need me to do?”
I shook my head. For the last half hour, I’d been trying not to think about our dinner guests. Well, except for Lily. I was excited to see her. I’d talked to her once on the phone this week, but she was as busy as Stephan. I hadn’t realized the theft had occurred in her department until she told me.
Stephan tightened his arms around me as his lips brushed from my shoulder up to my ear. “Are you still nervous?”
“Yes.”
Suddenly he was moving and taking me with him.
We didn’t go far, only a few feet. “Let’s see what we can do about that, shall we? Do you have anything cooking that will burn in the next ten minutes?”
“No.” My voice was shaky. I wasn’t sure if it was more from nerves or excitement.
“Good. Place your hands on the counter in front of you and keep them there.”
Leaning forw
ard, I did what I was told.
Stephan still had his arms around my waist, but they didn’t stay there for long. He trailed his hands up my torso until he was cupping my breasts. Then, before I knew what was happening, he pulled down both my shirt and the cups of my bra, exposing me. It wasn’t cold inside the condo, but my nipples reacted as if I’d walked out naked into freezing temperatures. He took hold of my breasts and began massaging them roughly. I closed my eyes and moaned. I loved when he touched me like this.
“Do you like that?” His breath was warm against my ear, but it made me shiver.
“Yes.”
Moments later, I sucked in a deep breath as his fingers moved forward to pinch and pull my nipples. “That’s it. You like that, don’t you? I bet you’re wet for me, aren’t you, Brianna?”
He pulled harder, and a surge of pleasure went to the spot between my legs.
“Hmm. Speechless, are you? I suppose I’ll have to check for myself, then.” Before my brain could register what he was doing, he removed his hands from my breasts and was lowering my jeans.
I opened my mouth, but words left my brain as he thrust two fingers inside me and began pumping vigorously.
The only sounds were my breathing and of his hand slapping against my very wet sex. I could feel my climax building, and I closed my eyes, trying to hold on. He’d not given me permission to come.
It wasn’t long until I was teetering on the edge, and to make matters worse, he’d returned his left hand to my breasts. In an almost unbearable rhythm, he was alternating his attention between them—twisting and pulling my nipples. I bit down on the side of my cheek.
“Please.”
“Please what, Brianna? Tell me what you want.”
I gasped as his thumb grazed my clit. “Please. May I come, Sir?”
He licked up my neck as he continued his assault. “Not. Quite. Yet.”