I Need You Always

by Cynthia P. O'Neill

  “What the heck was that for?” The slap caught me off guard, but it didn’t hurt, instead it tingled and sent a pulse throughout my body.

  He pulled me tight against him, my breasts pressed hard against his chest, as he whispered in my ear. “That’s a little taste of later, if you’re game. I may be a Dom, but you have all the power, Marissa.”

  I couldn’t understand why he kept telling me I had all the power. I was feeling more confused than ever about this whole D/s situation. But, at the same time, I never felt more turned on in my life.

  Dinner was an exotic explosion of flavor filling every corner of my mouth and stomach. I’ve never tasted a more amazing Beef Braciole than when I visited my grandmother in Sicily. It brought back wonderful memories. I’d asked Rosa if she’d teach me some of her recipes the next time we were around, explaining how my family’s recipes had died along with my grandmother.

  To my surprise Dane spoke up and offered to teach me. Rosa agreed. “Dane knows all the recipes. One thing about our family, we like to pass on the cooking genes from one generation to the next. All of my children and my brother’s children know the family recipes. This way you don’t have to wait.” She said the last part giving me a wink.

  After dinner, we sat around eating some Tiramisu and discussing what was on the agenda for the next day. Dante spoke up. “Do you know about the strong storms that are coming in by tomorrow night?”

  My first thoughts were whether this would affect our ability to fly. Dane was already on the phone with our pilots to inquire about our flight plans.

  “It looks like we need to depart shortly after lunch to make it ahead of the storms. We’ll need to make a pit stop in London to refuel before flying back home. If we go with our original plans, we could be stuck here a couple extra days and will miss your graduation.”

  Rosa spoke up. “You’re graduating, Marissa?”

  I nodded. “I just finished my finals and flew out with Dane the following day to start work. My graduation is this Saturday.”

  “By all means, you must go, be with your family.” Dante insisted. “We’ll be here for your next visit.”

  I’d been excited about returning home until I was reminded that there’d be no family to cheer me on. Dane sat down beside me, circling one arm around my shoulder and the other around my waist, before kissing my temple. “Don’t worry, Bella. You brother may still make it. If not you have your friends and me.”

  We continued talking until the wee hours of the night, knowing that we could catch some sleep on the plane. Rosa regaled me with some stories of Dane’s childhood, how she and Dante met when she came to work the vineyard with one of her uncles, and how Mr. Prescott used to be a bit wild in his youth. It seems like the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.

  I DON’T REMEMBER WHEN we went to bed or how we got there, only that it was nice waking up with the warmth of Dane’s skin pressing against mine. I’m guessing he prefers to sleep naked, now that we’ve seen each other’s bits and pieces.

  Dane’s legs were wrapped around mine, with his arms holding my back against his chest, as his five o’clock shadow scratched across my back, while his lips placed gentle kisses along my neck. “Good morning, beautiful.”

  I pressed back into him, not expecting to hit morning wood. Was he always this turned on? “Sorry.”

  He laughed as he bit down softly on my ear. “You’ll get used to it. You’re the reason he’s already up. Speaking of being up, we need to get a quick shower and get to the airport. I’ve already requested a car to pick us up in two hours.”

  I moaned, but reluctantly grabbed for a sheet to cover myself and started to get up. “Oh, no you don’t.”

  I looked puzzled. What did he mean?

  He got up and pulled the sheet away from me. “When we’re together in the bedroom, at home or on travel, I prefer you naked. If you need any nighttime attire, I’ll be the one to pick it out.”

  I rolled my eyes at him and tried to plead my case. “You promised to go easy on me, no rushing things, remember? I don’t even know the extent of what a Dom/sub relationship is beyond what I’ve read in books.”

  His face softened as he pulled me into a hug and put his finger under my chin, forcing me to look up at him. “I’m sorry. I’ll try to explain things as we go. I don’t mean to rush or scare you, just bear with me and tell me, “Yellow,” when you feel frightened. That’ll let me know to slow down and explain.”

  “So the stoplight system is true then.” I said it more as fact, rather than a question.

  A sultry smile spread across his face. “Just how many of those books did you read? Maybe we could recreate some scenes that intrigue you.”

  “You never did answer why I couldn’t wear any clothes in the bedroom.” I slapped my hand against his chest trying to get him to answer. I should’ve known better when I felt a resounding slap on one of my ass cheeks and then the other.

  “One of those was for rolling your eyes at me and the other for slapping at me.” He looked me deep in the eyes. “Try not to do that again.” His palm now rubbed over both cheeks making sure I felt it. I tensed in his arms.

  His forehead rested on mine. “I’ve been reading different triggers and responses you have with your body. They tell me when to back off and when to move forward. When you’re wearing clothes it’s harder for me to read you.”

  Dane leaned back as his eyes traveled over the entire length of my body before reaching my eyes. “For example, your posture and facial expression are telling me you’re a little frightened. However, your nipples are drawn up into tight peaks and lips of your pussy are coated with a fine sheen, telling me you’re either excited about me seeing you naked or the couple of smacks to the ass turned you on.”

  I blushed immediately. “There’s no shame in that, Marissa. I love looking at your body and knowing that I’m the one who turned you on.”

  “Will you be naked in the bedroom, too?”

  His eyes became hooded and his sultry Dom voice emerged. “Yes. I actually abhor night wear. I was only wearing them for you. However, there may be a time, when we play out a scene, where I’ll have on partial clothing and you’ll have on an outfit of my choosing or nothing at all.”

  Holy, hell! My pussy just clenched. His words had a few scenes jumping to the forefront of my mind and I could feel the moisture building around my privates.

  He glanced over at the clock. “While I’d love to stand here and talk about all this with you, we really need to get ready.”

  We quickly showered and dressed, trying to refrain from touching each other as much as possible to avoid slowing us down.

  Dane placed our bags by the front door, along with the box of wine and oil Dante had left there. Our breakfast was hurried. Thankfully Rosa had a simple spread of muffins, juice, and yogurt.

  I don’t know what possessed me to cry when I hugged them both goodbye. They weren’t family, but somehow I felt I’d made some new friends and hoped to one day see them again.

  Dane held me tight against his side in the backseat, as I leaned against his chest. His hand kept rubbing up and down my arm, as he kept kissing my hair, reassuring me we’d see them again.

  “Do you love with your entire heart?” The question came out of nowhere.

  I lifted my head up, feeling confused. Why did he need to know this?

  “Isn’t that how one’s supposed to love, whether family, friend, or anyone else?” I countered, hoping he didn’t read too much into things.

  He leaned down, giving me a chaste kiss on the lips. “I’m just curious. I’ve never known someone as caring as you, Marissa. Most people try to guard their hearts and feelings, too afraid of getting hurt. Your way of looking at things is refreshing. It’s one of the things I love about you. It gives me hope, when all I wanted to do after my ex cheated on me and my sister died, was to die along with her.”

  I sat up and grabbed hold of his face. “I’ll not tolerate you talking like that, ever! One thing
life has taught me is that it’s not fair. But, that doesn’t mean you should give up. I’ve learned when things look the darkest, that’s when the light is about to shine. You need to think of life as an arrow on a bow; you can only pull the arrow back so far before the bow can’t handle the pressure and it releases the arrow propelling it forward toward its destiny.”

  Dane looked at me funny, so I put it into plain words. “Let’s just say for every step you take back in life, eventually you’ll be pushed forward.”

  His hand came up and pushed some errant hair behind one of my ears. “How did you ever get so wise beyond your years?”

  Before I could answer, the driver was at our door and handing our items over to the pilots to store on the plane.

  The pilots had already done the pre-flight check and we were in the air within no time, with Dane sitting by my side.

  He squeezed my hand. “You never did answer my question about your insight.”

  I took a deep breath in. “Life hasn’t always been kind to me. My brother excels at anything he puts his mind to, whereas I have to struggle and fight for it. He was given his choice of trips to take when he graduated high school, that’s how I saw my grandmother in Sicily. We’d both wanted to meet her. But, when it was my turn to graduate, I’d been told they couldn’t afford the expense, not if I wanted to go to school, too.”

  “That doesn’t seem very fair. They couldn’t even offer you a small trip somewhere?” Dane questioned, with a bit of sadness in his expression.

  “I learned later that my brother picked Sicily because he knew that it was my dream to visit our heritage.”

  “We both got our room and board paid for, if we received scholarships for school. We were told that when we graduated we’d have six months to a year to find a job and they’d continue to help with room and board for a few months, so we could build a small nest egg to fall back on.”

  I breathed in deeply, trying not to sound like sour grapes about the situation. “He not only graduated early, but found a job immediately that paid well and offered to send him around the country and even overseas. My parents paid for a few months worth of room and board so he could build up money. He managed to build a bundle with the company paying for his expenses while on a job. So he has very little coming out of his paycheck . . .”

  Before I could finish, Dane asked. “You weren’t given the same option?”

  I shook my head. “I received the same offer up until five months ago. The semester had just started and my dad called to break the news that he’d made a couple of bad investments and had a major setback as a result. He’d had them before, but never this severe.

  “They were able to keep their part of the promise for room and board for school, but the rest of the deal was off. I either had to find work immediately or return home.”

  I’ve never seen Dane angry, but his fist came down on the side of the chair, so hard it made me jump. “I’m sorry, Marissa. I just don’t see the fairness in all this. Did your brother help at all?”

  “Nate didn’t know at first. He was in the middle of an assignment and was hard to reach. He’d already gifted me his car so I’d have transportation for school and work. That’s when I applied to the paid internship at your family’s business and was thankful to have it. It helped to supplement my monthly allowance, just enough to get by.”

  His face was pure puzzlement. “How on earth did you manage on so little?”

  “My roommates helped pitch in when things were tight. They had some extra furniture so I sold mine and used theirs. I ate only what I had to and tried to carpool whenever I could.”

  He unbuckled my lap belt and pulled me into his lap. “You astound me. No wonder I’m attracted to you.”

  I was about to question him when my stomach grumbled. “You need to eat.”

  I’d offered to get up and grab us some lunch, dinner, or whatever time zone we were in. But, he refused, insisting that he wanted to take care of me and he did, even putting me to bed when I’d fallen asleep on his shoulder.

  I awoke with a start, trying to figure out where I was. “Shh, Marissa, we’re just lying in bed on the plane. We’ve already refueled in London and are now on our way to the States.” He cuddled me closer and made me realize he took the no clothes rule in the bedroom seriously, though I couldn’t complain, he felt so nice and warm.

  I drifted in and out of sleep, listening to Dane snore softly. In one sense I like his sensitive caring side, because he’s completely opposite of any guy I’ve ever been around. Gee, I’ve dated some selfish assholes. But in another sense, I am craving the dominant side that is emerging. I’m not sure which side of his personality is stronger and worry that I won’t be able to live up to his expectations, just how dominant and kinky did he get?

  WE’D ARRIVED HOME A couple days ahead of schedule and decided to go into the workplace to set up our offices. Dad had been pushing me to spend more time there and with Marissa by my side, I finally gave in. I loved the look on her face when we stepped onto dad’s floor instead of the sales department. Since we were both educating each other on various areas of the business, dad had put us into the same office with two desks facing one another.

  On the way up to our offices, we’d passed Cameron Heath in the lobby. He’d stopped Marissa asking her, “What are you doing here? You weren’t hired. I made sure of it.”

  I was ready to step in front of her and defend her against the jerk, when she laid into him, “You might want to enlighten Mr. Prescott about your decision, since he hired me personally.” She turned my direction. “I’m sure you’ve met his eldest son, Dane.”

  It was amazing how she dismissed him and walked away without a care. His face was full of fury and it worried me. I stepped up and whispered, “My father will hear about this. If I were you, I’d rethink your attitude. From what I understand, you’re already walking a thin tight-rope.”

  The weekend arrived and Marissa should’ve been excited for her graduation, but she seemed down in the dumps. She’d worked twelve hour days the last two days and wanted to work today, but I insisted she enjoy her Saturday. I realized her tactics early on. She was trying to hide her emotions by keeping busy.

  She’d received a bouquet of flowers from her parents, congratulating her on her graduation that morning. You could see the disappointment in her eyes that they couldn’t make it.

  I’d called Nate after we got back and asked if there was any way their parents could come, even if I bought the airplane tickets. He’d alluded that their parent’s situation was worse than what they were letting Marissa know.

  Nate explained their dad had been slapped with several law suites for the bad investment and they were busy fighting that, along with moving. They’d sold their house, downsizing in order to get back on their feet and had to be out by the end of the weekend. “They want to come to support Marissa and feel terrible about how everything’s happened. Please don’t let her know what all’s going on. It’s best she’s kept in the dark or she’ll worry and want to help.”

  I decided to try lifting her spirits by gifting her with my silver BMW M4 sport coupe. I’d offered to buy any car she wanted, but she wouldn’t have it. The car was only a couple years old, couldn’t seat many people, which was a plus in my book, and was extremely safe. I ended up transferring the title over to her, but she didn’t know that yet.

  Marissa argued that she wouldn’t need a car since we were both riding to work together. I’d explained that there might be times when we needed separate vehicles. She finally relented stating she’d only use it while she worked for the company or until she could afford one of her own. I’d just bought a red Alfa Romeo and didn’t need the other car sitting around not being driven.

  The car seemed to cheer her up a bit, but before long she was trudging through the house looking like she’d lost her best friend. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I picked her up and placed her on the nearest hard surface and lifted her face to look at me. “You need to snap
out of this, Marissa. You have the support of me and your friends today. We’re here for you and care about you.”

  A few tears began to slip from her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’ll try to get it together. I just feel a bit abandoned today.”

  Her words felt like a slap to the face. Abandoned? I was standing beside her; supporting her, trying to cheer her up, and she felt this way. I dropped my hands and walked away. I couldn’t deal with this right now. “I need to workout and get my frustrations under control. You have free reign of the house. You’re not to go anywhere without notifying me.”

  I ran to my room and quickly changed before heading to my play room. I needed control and the only thing to help calm my mind would be wielding my bull whip. Thankfully, my room was sound proof so I didn’t have to worry about any noises Marissa might hear.

  I was drenched with sweat, but finally able to think clearly again. When Marissa had put me down, all I could think of was dragging her in here, tying her down to the spanking bench and paddling her ass until she admitted she wasn’t alone. But, I knew it would only scare her at this point.

  I was surprised to see her in the gym, as I exited the room. It looked like she’d been working out for a while, getting out some of her frustrations, which was good. She was using the thigh adductor and it gave me an idea. I’d try to give her another orgasm, similar to the one in Italy, but this time I’d use real restraints and go down on her orally. Maybe that would get her to relax.

  “Dane, what are you . . .” My lips cut off her words as I stood in front of her, grabbed hold of both her wrists, and tied them behind her in the seat.

  “Shh, bella. You’re upset and I want to help relieve some of the tension you’re holding. Do you remember the traffic light system?”

  She nodded, but didn’t look scared. I watched as her eyes, half hooded, roamed all over my body and her tongue came out to wet her lips. Telling me this is exactly what she needed.