by Lilia Moon
Chapter Forty-Two
Milo
I’m fifteen kinds of nervous. And excited. And hopeful. And a bunch of other things I don’t have time to name, because Mattie’s already opening her apartment door.
She stares at me, and I can’t blame her. I probably look a little crazy, still covered in wood dust and holding a big wrapped box and a take-out bag.
She reaches for the food first and opens the bag. It gets an appreciative sniff, and then a giggle that threatens to spill into something bigger any minute. “Is this practice? For the whole pregnancy thing?”
I realize that in some kind of strange attempt to woo the girl by sharing my favorite snacks, I’ve just showed up at her door with French fries and soft-serve ice cream. At least it isn’t pickles. “It was easy food to grab on the way.”
She steps back to let me in. “I never turn down a man bearing gifts. Come on in.”
Her energy is easier than I expected. Ari shifted something profound, and not just for me. I watch Mattie closely, trying to get a read on where she’s landed.
She shakes her head. “You’re such a Dom. You can study me in a minute. Closet’s there for your coat. I’ll be in the living room making ice cream disappear.”
The living room is only about three steps past the entry, so I don’t lose sight of her as I hang up my jacket. Her closet’s as neat as my toolbox, which feels oddly good. We’ve been spending way too much time looking at the ways we don’t mesh and overlooking the small, soothing ways we do. The kind that lots of people build a life on.
I watch her as she folds into a comfortable pretzel shape on a couch that looks like it swallows people whole and keeps them for days. She wasn’t kidding about making ice cream disappear—she’s already got a spoon in action by the time I join her.
She grins and hands me the container. “I’m an only child and I don’t share well. You’ve been warned.”
I laugh. “I’m the youngest of four. I know how to protect my ice-cream turf.”
She smiles shyly. “This is weird. But it feels good.”
I know what she means. Fettered is a deeply intimate place—but these aren’t the kinds of details people share with each other there. I know how Mattie looks when she comes, but I don’t know if she likes plain vanilla or chocolate swirl soft serve better. “I realized something when Ari was talking about all the new couples at the club and how their lives have changed.”
She tilts her head and steals back the ice cream.
“Emily and Scorpio and Gabby are all new to kink. Or we think of them like that, but what they really are is way more immersed in life outside the club than the rest of us.”
She looks at me and her spoon doesn’t move. “They led the way. To whatever happens between two people when they aren’t being kinky.”
I nod. “They’re used to a life that’s messy, that doesn’t have so many rules, so much control. We create those things in kink to keep people safe and let them explore territory that would be really dangerous otherwise, but I think maybe that creates the illusion that life can be negotiated and worked out and kept in strict parameters just like a scene.”
Her head is still tilted. “You’ve been doing a lot of thinking.”
I have, and now I’m doing way too much talking. “There’s something between us. Something that could maybe be really important.”
Chapter Forty-Three
Mattie
His face lights up in a way I’ve never seen before.
I want my chance with what I see there. “I really like you. Who you are, and how my body responds to you.”
He laughs. “There’s never been anything wrong with our chemistry.”
It kind of snuck up on me, and I’m glad it did. I look at him, because I have to ask before this goes one step further. “The baby thing doesn’t scare you? That I want one?”
He looks almost shy. “No. It’s growing on me fast. And not just babies. A family. What Gabby has, with grandkids and everything, and the way Harlan looks on a Sunday afternoon when he’s just spent the whole weekend lounging on Scorpio’s couch?”
I’ve heard her version. “They’re naked. He likes licking pizza cheese off her belly.”
Milo makes a face and leans into me, laughing. “After all the things I’ve seen, why does hearing stuff like that make me feel like a fourteen year old who just walked in on his parents having sex?”
I shrug, but it feels so good to be stumbling into this strange land with someone who’s equally lost. “Because we’re goofballs. Who should maybe try eating pizza naked together sometime.”
He grins. “Done.”
I’ve never tried to negotiate my life before. It feels good.
He reaches for the package he brought, which looks like it got hastily wrapped in the brown paper Amazon uses as stuffing when they ship me things. Emily would have fits. I’m finding it stupidly endearing. He looks at me, and I can see that this is big. “I made you a present.”
Whoa. Milo makes amazing things. Fancy things. Things that can’t be wrapped and carried. I hold out my hands and take it, surprised at the weight. Whatever’s in there, it’s not lingerie. I tear at the paper and laugh at the pizza box I unearth inside.
I don’t laugh when I open the flap. My fingers reach out to touch, even though the rest of me can barely breathe. It’s a paddle. A gorgeous, handcrafted wood one, covered in a honeycomb of interesting grooves. I stare, feeling all the emotions rising straight up my throat at once.
“There’s a story to the grooves,” he says quietly. “The other side is the business end of things, but I’ve been thinking about all the grooves I need to escape. And all the new ones I’d like to find with you.”
I trace the lines. A tangible message, and a beautiful one—on a paddle that’s beautiful and decorative and very obviously meant to be used. It’s got the shape, the weighting, the handle wrapped by a Dom who knows how he wants to hold it. I’m caught by all that it says. And by the parallel ground we’ve walked today, even if he doesn’t know it yet.
Finding the core that matters. Discarding the rest.
He trails his fingertips over my hand that’s still stroking the paddle. “I can do this for you sometimes. Ari’s right. I got scared about getting stuck in a place I don’t want to be in all the time, but I’m not a selfish asshole. This can be like buying you the kind of cheese you like, even if I think it stinks, or putting on your favorite tunes instead of mine. Basic give-and-take. We find the ways we overlap easily, and the places where we can give to each other some of the time and be fine with that.”
I finally tear my eyes away from the paddle, because I need to see his face. “Thank you.” I have more words than that, but I can’t find them yet.
He smiles and tugs me tight into his side. “I want to get all squirmy and uncomfortable together. We’ve both spent a really long time in the kinky world learning how to be safe. Babies aren’t comfortable, and parenting isn’t, and I hear the long-term-partner thing can get pretty messy too. I don’t know if that’s who we can be for each other, but I want all of that to be our question. The whole world of give-and-take between two people.”
I stroke the paddle. It’s a touchstone, a gift glued together from all the words he’s just said. “I’d like to try.” I look up, seeking his face. “I’d really like to try.”
He laughs. “Thank goodness, because if I get any harder sitting here watching you stroke something I made, my cock might never recover.”
The arousal I’ve been tamping down since he showed up at my door roars to life. I lean in to him, not at all sure what the ground rules are here and discovering I don’t much care. “Um, I’d be really happy to do something about that.”
He catches my chin in his fingers and stops a hairsbreadth from kissing me. “I’m still a Dom, gorgeous. You want to play or you need something, you let me know. None of this topping-from-the-bottom nonsense.”
My body sings at his words. I need this from him and he
knows it. He walked in my door offering a lot more than a paddle. “Yes. Please. I need.”
He chuckles, and his lips barely brush mine. “That’s awfully open-ended.”
I find my brat and let her loose, just a little. “I hear you’re a Dom. A really inventive one.”
He pulls me in closer, and his free hand runs up and cups my breast. It’s not tentative. There’s demand in him. Intent. The touch of a man who knows what he wants and what I need and plans to make us both very happy.
Chapter Forty-Four
Milo
She’s beautiful and generous and ready to dive in headfirst and it’s finally time to do that right.
I set the paddle aside. That’s not where we’re taking this, not in her apartment with thin walls and neighbors who might not roll with the sounds of her ass meeting this particular toy. I grin, because one of the really great parts about being a Dom is keeping your sub guessing. “We won’t be using this.”
Her pouty face is gorgeous and sincere and funny as hell.
Time to get rid of it. “We can’t. The baby’s sleeping right down the hall and this is the first time we’ve had an hour to ourselves in days.” I drop my voice to the lowest volume I can manage without whispering. “We’re going to need to be very quiet.”
She stares at me, and I can practically see her brain stuttering.
It’s a ballsy move—not as a Dom, but as a guy who’s still learning what flavor of ice cream she likes. But we aren’t going to make this work by trying to stay safe, and I finally have a good grip on that particular truth. I reach out and run a knuckle down her cheek. “Here, or in your bedroom?” I wouldn’t normally give her a choice, but I’m about to make a whole lot of demands of her, and she can at least choose where. This time.
Her eyes soften. “Bedroom. Please, Sir.”
I don’t let either of us dodge what that means. “That’s more intimate.”
She nods. No words.
That’s okay. I’m not a Dom who needs them. I let my knuckle trace down her cheek, the line of her neck, over the curve of her breast and a nipple that’s already puckering to meet my fingers. “You’ve had a long day. Juggling the baby and work for Emily and Tonio’s latest sauce disaster.”
She grins, and I can see her stepping into her role. “I sent Tonio to cry on someone else’s shoulder, because new moms and temperamental Italian chefs are a bad mix. Leo held Sarah all afternoon while Gabby and I set up the reception hall, and then I came home and nursed her and she crashed for her nap, all fat and happy.”
She likes chocolate swirl soft serve, she wants to name a baby Sarah, and her nipples are going to be off-limits. Check. I brush the curve of her breast again. “No clamps then. Maybe a little sucking if you beg.”
I see the surprise flare in her eyes—and the curiosity.
There’s a kink we don’t see often at the club. My cock is already straining against my pants. “You have two minutes. I want you naked and on your bed, facedown, fingers playing slowly with your pussy when I walk in.”
She groans quietly and leans into the knuckle that’s still stroking circles around her nipple.
I hide a grin, because this isn’t a sub who’s disobeying—it’s one who’s so far gone already that she’s losing track of instructions. “Mattie. Now. Bed, naked, facedown, playing with yourself.”
She shoots up like I sat her on a bed of nails. “Yes, Sir. Sorry.”
I’m not. Not even a little.
Chapter Forty-Five
Milo
There isn’t anything much better in the world than walking into a room with a naked, willing sub on a bed. I can’t believe I forgot that for a while. I also can’t believe how much hotter it is when it’s Mattie’s bed and I’m there hoping to be more than her Dom.
I let my eyes run up and down her beautiful curves. They’re in shadows—the room isn’t lit well for my purposes, but I don’t care. New grooves, ones where the timing and the set-up and the equipment won’t always be perfect. I pause by the bed and run a hand up her calf. “You’re gorgeous, Mattie.”
She smiles, and there’s more focus in her eyes than when she left the living room. “Nursing boobs, stretch marks, and all?”
I feel my body respond to her words before my brain even processes them.
She laughs, because my cock is right at her eye level and she clearly hasn’t missed the obvious.
Definitely new grooves. I look around, taking a quick survey of her bedroom. Clean lines, furniture that I recognize from my sister’s obsession with IKEA, accented with lots of blues and greens and soft things. A small, cozy room. Not a lot of space to maneuver, but I can work with that. I walk around the side of the bed, trailing my fingertips on her warm skin—and catch sight of a covered basket on a small shelf. It’s woven, with earthy colors and a tight, complex design that’s faintly tribal. I touch it with my other hand. “This is beautiful.”
Mattie’s cheeks turn pink. “Thank you. Making them is a hobby.”
I know the difference between hobby and art. I sit down on the bed beside her, pulling the basket into my lap. “Seriously, you made this?” My fingers trace the weft and weave, or whatever those are called with baskets. “Where do you hide all the ends?”
She laughs and wiggles over, crossing her arms on my thigh and setting her chin down on her arms. “Seriously, you have a naked woman awaiting instructions and you want to learn about basket weaving?”
I almost make it to embarrassed, and then I remember who I am and who I want to be with her. “Geek Dom. It’s a temporary distraction, I promise.”
She tips her head toward me and her smile is shy. “I don’t mind.”
I lift the flap that covers the top of the basket, hoping to see how she manages the joins—and blink. More than once.
She laughs again. “Snoopy Dom.”
I totally am. And I’ve just found her stash of toys, although not the ones I imagined she might have. This is full of candles and feathers and body oils and the kinds of things that could keep a Dom who likes to edge happy for hours. It takes a beat for that to sink in, and then I’m searching for her eyes, because she’s just flattened me, and not with her basket-weaving skills. “You put this together? For me?”
“For us.” She shrugs, which wiggles her closer to my cock and him closer to the edge of insane. “I heard what Ari said, about finding the core. For me, the core of kink is clearing out the crap that accumulates inside me. I felt pretty awesome when I left your house the other day, so I’m thinking I need to give this edging stuff a chance.”
So much for convincing my sub to try the back roads. She’s already headed down one full steam ahead, waiting for me to catch up.
She rolls off my thigh and pulls a pillow under her head, looking a little unsure. “I didn’t mean for you to find it today.”
I believe her. This isn’t topping from the bottom. It’s stretching. Trusting. Offering.
And no way in hell am I going to turn that down.
Chapter Forty-Six
Mattie
He sets the basket down and gives me a look that sees right through everything I am. “Facedown, pillow under your hips, fingers playing with your pussy.”
He doesn’t have the standard Dom voice, or at least I’ve never heard him use it, but everything in me responds anyhow. I get the pillow underneath me, which isn’t graceful or sexy at all, and tuck an arm under my belly between my legs. Nothing’s lined up quite right, but before I can fix it, Milo’s hands are moving things, reshaping the pillow, pulling my knee up so I’m rolled over a little on my side. “Better? Anything else need adjusting?”
He takes so much care. It makes me feel warm somewhere far deeper than my skin. “No. Thank you, Sir.”
His knuckle strokes my cheek again. “I would like it if you called me Milo, even in our scenes.”
My eyes fly open. I hadn’t realized they were closed. It’s a strange request, but Doms have quirks—except this isn’t one. I’ve cal
led him Sir before and it’s been fine. This is different. A kind of closeness, just like bringing him to my bedroom. “Thank you, Milo.” My voice sounds like a jazz singer’s, deep and a little raspy. My Dom has a name. He wants me to use it.
He smiles and adjusts how he’s sitting so that he’s sideways and in tight in to my side. “I like the view from here.”
I’m a sub with a decade of experience getting naked and having eyes roam all over my body. This feels totally different, vulnerable in ways that taking off my clothes usually aren’t. My fingers move slowly, awkwardly, trying to find a bit of a rhythm. I assume he wants to see how I pleasure myself. Standard Dom trick. It’s a good shortcut to knowing how to get me off.
He lays a hand on my hip. “Your orgasms are mine this afternoon. I’m not asking you to arouse yourself, just to touch. Let me watch while you explore a bit. Breathe with me and let your fingers move in time with your breathing.”
I stare at him—that sounds more like tantric yoga than kink.
He smiles. “Edging isn’t about self-control, remember? Not with me, anyhow. I want you to do the same thing you do with impact play. Sink into it. Let go.” His fingers are moving in small, calming circles on my hip. “I’ve got you. All I want you to do is slowly let yourself melt. Join your breath with mine and let your fingers glide around in your pussy.”
I inhale when he inhales. Watch his chest for the exhale and then realize it’s easier to just listen. Air in, air out.
His fingers slide down my hip and over the hand touching my pussy, gently encouraging it to move. “Really feel yourself. Know that my fingers will be here soon enough.” He leans over, his voice by my ear. “Know that they ache to be there.”
I let out a low whimper I barely recognize as mine. My fingers slide around in the new wetness. Aimlessly, simply enjoying the heat and the utter absence of demand.
Panic grabs for me. This is so not a sub I know how to be.
“Sshhh.” He’s still at my ear, still stroking my hip. “Listen to my breath, Mattie. Join with that. The rest belongs to me.”