“When ‘we’ get back?”
“You don’t think I’m going home without you, do I?”
“Well, I can’t leave until Monday.”
“Fine. You can show me New York. I’ve never seen it.”
“I can do that,” she said. “First place I’m going to show you…my bedroom.”
As soon as they were inside her building, they kissed. Then they kissed on the first floor landing, kissed a little longer on the second floor landing. He slipped his hand under her little black dress and hiked her leg around his back before kissing her again against the wall, which he would have been happy to do for hours, except an elderly woman stepped out into the hallway with a trash bag in hand, looked at them and said, “Get a room” in Spanish.
“Lo siento, seńora,” Jason said quickly. Laughing, Simone grabbed him by the hand and pulled him to her apartment door.
Jason was happy to see her hand shaking a little as she unlocked her door. He knew how she felt. He was shaking with excitement, happiness, and plain stupid relief she’d forgiven him so easily.
“Cute place,” Jason said, glancing around her apartment.
“Want the tour?” she asked. “There. Done.”
“Still haven’t seen the bedroom.”
“It’s all the way over here,” Simone said. They went five steps and were at her open bedroom door.
“You don’t love me,” Jason said, glancing at the tiny bedroom that barely left any space between the full-size bed and the wall, window, and door. “You just love my square footage.”
“I don’t care about the feet,” she said, unbuckling his belt. “Just the inches, sir.”
He smiled happily, drunkenly. “I missed that ‘sir.’ Much as I missed this girl.”
Before she could reply he kissed her again and while kissing her, pushed her down onto the bed. He stopped only to ask her a very important question.
“Now didn’t you tell me you keep some toys at your place?” he asked her.
She grinned and pointed down.
“Under the bed?” he asked.
She nodded, still grinning.
He leaned over the side of the bed, looked under the dust ruffle, and found a box underneath.
“You keep your kinky stuff in Tupperware?” he asked as he pulled out the large flat plastic tote.
“It’s a space saver,” she said. “You need that in this place.”
“Good point.” Jason pulled the lid off and could have sworn he heard a choir of angels singing somewhere. In the box were floggers, thin rattan canes, handcuffs, paddles, and rope.
“That’s what I’m talking about right there,” he said and pulled a bundle of soft black rope out of the box. “This I already know how to use.”
“Do you?”
In record time, Jason tied the end of the rope into a lasso. He spun it once and tossed it over her shoulders.
“Damn, you’re good,” she said. “Sir.”
“What did I say about that unladylike language?” he asked.
“That I’ll be punished for using it?”
“Right. So why did you use it?”
“So I’d be punished for using it.”
“What am I going to do with you, Spanky?”
“Punish me, I hope, sir?”
“Guess I gotta. You’re overdue for it.” He pulled the lasso tight around her shoulders and yanked her gently to her feet. He wrapped the rope a few more times around her arms and then bent her over the bed. She sighed with pleasure as he lifted the back of her dress to expose her bright pink panties. She sighed again when he slid them down her thighs. Hard and quick as he could, he spanked her six times in a row until her skin burned bright red.
“That’s more like it,” he said.
“I’ll say.”
“Not if I gag you, you won’t.”
Simone said nothing. Quick learner.
As he held her close and tight in one arm, he ran his hand all over her ass and thighs. He felt her go limp against him, leaning on him completely, trusting him to hold her and not drop her. And he would honor that trust by never ever letting her go.
Again.
Jason stripped her out of her dress and threw her back down onto the bed. He tied her wrists to the headboard and when she couldn’t do a damn thing to stop him—not that she would—he kissed her from lips to ankles and up again, stopping between her beautiful soft thighs. He licked her inside and all over until she was panting for him, begging and dripping wet. Only then did he take off his clothes. He didn’t stop for a breath until he was deep inside her with her ankles on his lower back and her breasts in his hands. He kissed her chest. He kissed her nipples. He kissed her mouth all the while moving in her hard and slow, slow and deep. Jason could have stayed in her all night. He planned to. All night and forever.
“Why are you smiling, sir?” Simone asked.
“Because I’m going to use everything in that box on you before morning,” he said. “And tomorrow you’re taking me shopping and we’re going to buy every kinky thing you want and I want and we want. Although…” He paused. “How we’re gonna get it all home on the damn airplane is beyond me.”
“You just check it,” she said. “You can take any kinky stuff you want on a plane in checked baggage.”
He pushed up on his arms and looked down at her with narrowed eyes. “How do you know that, Spanky?”
She smiled, and it was the smile that he’d fallen in love with and the smile he was going to stay in love with the rest of his life.
“What can I say?” Simone said. “This ain’t my first rodeo.”
Twenty-Three
October, Six months later
Simone woke up to a bright Kentucky autumn morning. The sky outside their bedroom window was so blue she had to blink a few times to take it all in.
“Master Jason?” she called out and then yawned hugely. No answer. Jason had already slipped out to do his morning check on the horses. Well, that was fine. She would get up, get dressed, and maybe she’d have breakfast ready by the time he came back. Busy day for both of them. Jason was packing to leave on a two-day road trip to pick up a Quarter Horse in Georgia he’d scouted for a local teenage girl who was learning to barrel race, and Simone was going with him. The horse farm they were visiting outside of Savannah had hired her to take the photographs of all their stock for their website. In just two months’ time, ever since packing up her apartment in New York and moving in with Jason, she’d already begun to make a name for herself in the tight-knit horse industry with her equine photography side business. People said she had a gift for capturing a horse’s personality with her pictures. She’d already been working on a charity calendar to raise money for Jason’s nonprofit, which helped provide therapy animals to kids in need. Every month was a shot of a child with a horse. April, the month she and Jason had met, was for Katie and Cupcake, Simone’s favorite picture by far. Mainly because Jason was in it too, at Katie’s insistence. The little girl had a big crush on Jason.
Simone couldn’t blame her. She had a big crush on him, too. And she had the tattoo on her arm to prove it. A tiny Ps 23:2, a reference to Psalm twenty-three, the second verse, “He leads me beside the still waters…” Jason “Still” Waters approved wholeheartedly of her ink. His family might not, but they were working on that. They’d been almost as angry about Simone as they were about Jason posing nude in the charity calendar. Jason said it was nice to have company on the shit list. He didn’t seem worried about it much so Simone didn’t worry, either.
In an effort to make peace, Simone had made two copies of the photo of Jason, Cupcake and Katie, framed them, and sent one to Jason’s mother and one to Jason’s sister Aimee. She’d received a very nice handwritten thank you note from Jason’s mother—progress. Meanwhile, Aimee had actually called and said the photo was so sweet it had made her cry. Aimee had even let Simone talk to both of Jason’s nieces on the phone. When the girls asked her if she’d take pictures of them with the
ir horses, Simone had said they’d have to ask their mother about that. Aimee said, “Next time we visit.” Another good sign.
Jason had told his whole family that he and Simone were together now, and he wouldn’t be going anywhere she wasn’t welcome. That hadn’t gone over very well at first. But now, maybe, it seemed the Waters family was warming up to her. Aimee had even sent Jason a text message saying that she was happy he was so happy.
Maybe by Christmas, they’d actually let Simone into their homes. But if not, she would take Jason with her to visit her family back in Connecticut. Or invite her parents, sister and nephew down here. Or…maybe she and Jason would just spend all December from Hanukkah to New Year’s Eve in bed together.
They’d probably go with that last option. They had plenty of holidays ahead of them to spend with family. Simone stood up and pulled on Jason’s abandoned flannel shirt from yesterday. He loved it when she slept in his shirts, loved taking them off of her in the middle of the night even more. Simone stood up and stretched, thought about taking a shower, eating breakfast, drinking coffee…that didn’t last long. She collapsed onto the covers intending to sleep a few more minutes. But when she rolled over she heard a weird sound, like she’d lain on a pile of paper. She sat up and saw she’d accidentally landed on a large envelope Jason had left laying on the covers. What on earth?
A note on the envelope said, “Open me.”
Interesting.
She smiled as she opened the envelope. She loved when Jason was in the mood to play games with her. He’d fully embraced his role as her owner and master, and not a day passed he didn’t remind her who was boss in the house. Considering the orders he gave her were things like, “Come for me” and “Suck me” and “Tell me how you want me to fuck you,” it was a pretty easy job being his submissive, servant, and slave. She’d never been more content in her life. The only thing that could make her any happier was Jason hurrying back from the barn to spank her again before breakfast. If her ass could take it. She had a nice blue bruise on it this morning. Turned out Jason was a natural with the paddle. Not that she was complaining. Not at all.
Inside the envelope was a calendar. Not just any calendar—their calendar. It was the Naked Men Reading Books literacy charity calendar. It had come in the mail to them yesterday, but Jason hadn’t let her see the final product. She’d thought he was simply torturing her by hiding it. Now she discovered he apparently had an ulterior motive for keeping it from her.
She flipped immediately to the month of November. Jason was Mister November, after all.
She groaned. The evil man had taped another, smaller envelope over his picture. How rude. If she opened this envelope to find an even smaller envelope inside it, she would scream.
Simone screamed.
Then, very carefully, as it was so small, she opened the third tiny envelope.
Inside that envelope was a tiny card, and on the tiny card were written three words.
“Pick a date.”
Pick a date?
Pick a date…
No. No way…he didn’t mean that date, did he?
Jason appeared in the doorway. Simone looked up at him in shock. She was breathing so hard she thought she might pass out.
“Jason?”
He held out his hand and in his palm was a ring.
“You have to say ‘yes,’ Spanky,” he said. “It’s an order.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, already crying, already shaking, already ready to marry him today.
Then he slipped the ring on her finger and as soon as she saw it she knew he was the perfect man for her and always would be.
It was a diamond ring, of course. But not just any old diamond.
A pink diamond.
* * *
THE END.
Bonus Short Story: Flogging 101 with Professor S
Author’s Note: This scene takes place the two days after Jason and Simone’s reconciliation in New York.
* * *
“I’m not sure about this,” Jason said as Simone led him to a gunmetal gray door in a dingy parking garage. She pulled a key out of her purse and slipped it into the lock.
She didn’t turn the key. Instead she left it in the lock and leaned back against the door, arms crossed over her chest. God bless her, she didn’t laugh at him though Jason could tell it was killing her not to.
“Master Jason,” she said.
“Miss Simone.”
“It’ll be fun, I promise.”
Jason didn’t know about that.
“Will it?” he asked. “You’re sure? One-hundred percent sure?” Even if Simone were ninety-nine percent sure, they’d go back to her apartment right now and find something else to do with her body. He had suggestions.
“Remember, I’ve been flogged before. A lot,” she said. “Like…a billion times.”
“For work,” he reminded her as he slid his hands over her hips. “But alone with me? That’s what you really want us to do?”
Simone gave him that little look of hers that said Poor sweet innocent dominant…It was like a pat on the head from her eyes.
“You want to flog me, don’t you?” she asked.
He glanced away and grinned sheepishly. “You know I do,” he said. “But only if you really want it.”
“Let me tell you something about flogging,” Simone said. “It’s the best. It starts with you either undressing me or making me undress for you, and there’s nothing wrong with that, is there?”
“Nothing wrong at all in the whole wide world.”
“Then you have to tie me up with my hands way, way up here…” She stretched her hands high over her head, which lifted her breasts and forced her back to arch. Jason could look at her posing like that all day and night. “And then I’m all trapped there, tied up, which means you can do whatever you want to me, and I can’t do anything about it. And the flogging itself? Oh my God…” She took a shuddering breath, pure sex. Even her eyelashes fluttered. She lowered her arms and wrapped them around his shoulders.
“That good?” Jason asked.
“Floggers are like huge hands with dozens of fingers so when you use one on me, it’s like having your hands on me, touching and spanking me all over…Flogging makes your skin so alive and sensitive…every touch feels a thousand times…more. Just more.” She took another breath as Jason pulled her against him.
“It’s all that?” he asked, trying not to smile.
“All that and more. It’s intimate, like sex, and intense, but it’s not sex. So we can have a flogging scene and then we can have sex, so it’s twice as much intense sexy intimate fun than what vanilla people do. And when it’s good…when it’s really good,” she said as she ran her hands up and down his chest over his gray t-shirt, “then it’s like we’re the only two people in the entire world. Everyone else disappears, and it’s just us, which means we can do whatever we want forever and ever and ever…”
To that whole speech, Jason said only, “Hmm.”
“Will you kiss me, please and thank you?” Simone asked.
Jason raised his chin, looked at her through narrowed suspicious eyes.
“I don’t know about that,” he said.
She fluttered her eyelashes.
“Don’t you want to kiss me?” she said, grinning girlishly.
Of course Jason wanted to kiss her. When didn’t he want to kiss her? Especially since Simone looked extra-kissable today. She wore her pink hair up in a pink ponytail and had on a short pink and white polka dot dress that hugged all her curves. Pink high heels, of course, and her pink lipstick was just begging to be kissed right off her pink lips.
“Not gonna do it,” he said. “I need to keep my head in my head right now, and if I kiss you, you know what I’ll be thinking with for the next two hours.”
Simone grabbed him two-handed by his t-shirt and dragged him to her. She kissed him on the mouth and before he could stop himself, he was kissing her back hard enough she ended up flat against the door ag
ain with one of her legs around his waist.
How on earth did that happen?
Jason forced himself to pull back from the kiss. He kept her leg wrapped around him, though.
“All right,” he said, staring down into her smiling face. “I’ll do this. But if he gets all uppity with me, I’m outta here.”
“Mistress Nora’s going to be there, too. What if she gets all uppity with you?”
“That I might like,” Jason said for the sole reason of riling Simone’s little jealous side up. It worked.
Her mouth fell open and Jason took that as an invitation to kiss her again. Open mouth, tongue fit right in.
Simone moaned with pleasure and Jason knew if they didn’t stop soon, that other leg of hers was going to find its way around his back. They’d fucked against a door before, just last night in her apartment when they couldn’t wait to get to her bed. Good thing her old apartment had sturdy doors, because he’d gripped her ass so hard he’d left bruises on both cheeks while he rammed into her pussy until she’d come with a cry into his ear and by God, he would do it again right here in this parking garage if she made him.
“Ahem.”
A woman’s voice had made that “Ahem.” Jason was so surprised by it, he almost dropped Simone. Luckily, he managed to recover quickly enough to lower her leg to the ground before he turned around and faced She-Who-Had-Ahemed at them.
He knew Mistress Nora on sight. He’d seen her picture, her video, but they hadn’t done justice to the woman in front of him.
She was Simone’s opposite in a way. Simone was all pink and playful today. Mistress Nora, however, had black hair that hung down in wild waves around her face. She wore tight black pants, black high heels, and a black corset top. She was even looking at them over the top of her black sunglasses. The only thing on her not black was her blood-red lipstick on her full lips.
“Hi, Mistress Nora,” Simone said. She giggled and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “You look like a vampire.”
Picture Perfect Cowboy Page 18