by S. E. Lund
"You really were going to try to seduce me, you bad man," she said, her voice lightly scolding. "I told Lara that the relationship would be purely research."
"Lara thought you needed a bit of encouragement. You know," I said, grinning. "Find your 'inner sub'. I was more than willing to try because I'd already thought of it. I do love a challenge. I just had to find out how to push your buttons, so to speak."
"That sounds so,” she said, hesitating as if to find the right word, "Machiavellian."
"Oh, it's completely Machiavellian. I can't lie. I wanted to conquer you, Ms. Bennet." I smiled to myself. "I thought I'd have you totally under my control in no time flat. How wrong I was…"
"What do you mean?"
I didn’t answer. I was not going to let her know just how much control I’d lost in this relationship. She wanted me to take control. If I slipped, if I became too relaxed and loose with her, she’d go somewhere else and find someone who offered her the control she craved. I couldn’t let that happen.
"You look like the Cheshire Cat," she said, looking at me from the corner of her eye. "The Cheshire Cat who swallowed the canary, to mix metaphors."
"Oh, I ate the lovely little canary. " I glanced over at her, unable to stop grinning. "I had her for breakfast and lunch and dinner."
"Don't get too smug." She took her hand back, her arms folded across her chest, smiling. "You're the one who came to me in the end, professing your love. Not wanting to be parted from me ever again."
Of course, that was right. I did come to her to profess my love. And I did love her. Too much for my own good. I reached over and took her hand once again. "You don't have to remind me about that. I thought I'd lost you for good. I was serious when I said I don't want us to be parted again."
"And yet, you were going to leave me, leave Manhattan and go to Kenya without even a goodbye?"
"Kate, remember what happened to me the last time a close relationship ended." I said nothing for a moment, thoughts of my divorce sobering me up a bit. Finally, I sighed. "After you said it was over, I tried not to feel anything. I shut down emotionally so I wouldn't over-react. I went through the motions of my life, hoping that going to Nairobi would distract me enough to keep the emotions locked away. Luckily, Elaine called me to tell me you'd fallen in love with me and were miserable, or right now, I'd probably be in some bar in Nairobi with a colleague, drowning my sorrows in a bottle of cheap vodka."
"You'd probably be looking for a new submissive. Lara would be busy sorting through her list of hopefuls."
"No. I'd have been overly invested in my work and my music. After you?" I shook my head and turned to her. "A relationship with just a sub would feel hollow."
She smiled, seemingly pleased at my confession. We drove in silence for a few moments and I thought about how empty my life would have been if Elaine hadn’t called.
"I'm so glad she did call," Kate said, her voice a bit choky. "I haven't thanked her enough."
I kissed her knuckles again. "We had a lot of people behind the scenes trying to get us together."
"And one determined to pull us apart."
We cruised to a halt at a traffic light. "She can't hurt us now," I said and glanced at Kate, at her sweet face, her large eyes and lush mouth.
After we drove on a few more blocks, she turned to me again. "Does anything ever faze you?"
I frowned and searched her face for her meaning. "Does anything ever faze me? Does anything ever faze me. Let's see…" I turned my attention back to the road, chewing my bottom lip for a moment. I was admittedly a very calm and controlled person. "You." I glanced at her. It was the truth. She fazed me.
"Me? You control me so well. How could I faze you?"
"I don't control you so well, in case you didn't notice,” I said, reluctant to admit it, but we were in confessional mode and I thought, what the hell. This is the woman I love. “With you, I'm a terrible Dom. I'd be laughed out of a dungeon if other Doms saw how much I'm wrapped around your little finger."
"What?" she said, laughing. "You're not wrapped around my finger. The other way around, Master."
"Ha," I said and shook my head. "I'm convinced you call me Master to keep me happy. Kate, I'm usually much more firm with my subs than I have been with you. Other Doms would punish you far more than I have. They'd demand absolute obedience by now. No questions. No hesitation." I smiled sheepishly and turned to look her in the eye. "I'm a lousy Dom."
"You're not happy with how things are between us?"
Of course, it was the wrong thing to say. "Yes, of course I'm happy. Remember? Meat and potatoes all smothered in gravy?"
"I think you control me quite well."
I chuckled, thinking what Lara would say if she saw what a bad Dom I had become, letting Kate get away with so much. "I can control you sexually fairly well, so far. But you made me break all my rules, Ms. Bennet, despite all my efforts to keep the parts of my life safely separate. You totally fazed me. I never thought I'd say it, but I enjoy you too much, especially when you resist me, question me. I'd do anything to keep you." I turned to her and smiled. "Love does that to you."
She smiled softly and squeezed my hand.
We arrived at my apartment building on 10th Avenue and West 23rd Street, a few blocks from the Hudson. I parked in my spot in the parking garage and we walked to the building. I saw it again as if for the first time, imagining it through her eyes. She was accustomed to wealth, so it wouldn’t impress, but there was something really grand about the old building. My apartment was worth a couple million on the current market and it had all the bells and whistles in addition to being in a historic building.
The concierge greeted me, holding the door open for us. We took the elevator to the top floor and before we entered, I stopped.
"Here," I said and slipped an arm under one of hers, picking her up. I wanted to re-establish control over her, and I knew one way was to make her feel helpless by picking her up. It worked and she tensed, resisting me.
"What are you doing?"
"You should be carried the first time you enter my apartment."
"Drake!" She tucked her head into the crook of my neck while I carried her inside. We stood in the entryway that had doors leading off to other rooms. I turned to examine her.
"So," I said, my eyes narrowed. "What's your first impression?"
She wriggled in my arms. "Are you going to put me down?"
I nuzzled her neck, needing her to let me lead, but she was still so independent.
"I don't know…" I murmured in her ear. "I kind of enjoy holding you like this. It brings out the Dom in me."
"But I want to see it!"
"You can see it anytime you want, Ms. Bennet,” I said, unable to resist the double entendre. “All you have to do is ask."
She glanced at me and when she saw that I was smiling, she did as well. I let her slide out of my arms and threw my keys onto a plate on a circular table in the center of the room. Kate walked into the living room, which looked out onto the red brick building across the street.
"It looks just like you," she said, turning in a circle. "Sleek, high end, rich, dark, cultured."
I glanced around. The place was crowded with musical instruments, a baby grand, my guitars and amps. On the walls were my father’s posters from the 60s and 70s of all his favorite bands.
"Are these your father's?"
I nodded and watched as she walked around and examined my possessions.
"He collected old photographs of the musicians and the bands he saw."
She stopped in the center of the room and glanced around before her gaze came to rest on me. Then, she came to me and slipped her arms around my waist, leaning her head against my chest. She caught me by surprise once more. I was unused to being shown affection by my subs. I didn’t have that kind of relationship with them and was used to being the one to initiate everything. Still, I enjoyed her show of affection and embraced her back. She snuggled against my body, her arms slipping
under my coat.
"I like this Drake Morgan," she said, looking me in the eye. "I'm seeing him a bit more clearly now."
"Oh?" I said, my eyebrows raised. "And what have you seen?"
"You seem so self-contained."
I sighed and squeezed her more tightly. "My mother had me after my brother died, so I was an only child."
She pulled back. "I never knew you had a brother who died."
I nodded and ran my fingers through her hair. "We've never talked much about personal things."
"Tell me."
I exhaled, for I didn’t talk much about Liam – to anyone. He was this mythic creature who died before I was born. I was just the replacement. Not the original. "He died before I was born from a very rare and aggressive form of leukemia. My mother never recovered, even after she had me. I had to be independent after she left. I think I was a little too independent for married life and that's one reason why Maureen and I split. I was also reluctant to have children because of the chance of passing on the mutation that caused my brother's leukemia, and that was a sore point between us. As soon as she left me, she had a child with her new boyfriend."
"Oh, Drake, that’s so sad." She squeezed me and I knew she was feeling sorry for me. It was a sentiment I did not want to cultivate. Pity. "What was your brother’s name?"
"Liam, after my father."
"How old was he when he died?"
"Five."
I thought about my dead brother, who I never knew, but who loomed so large in my life as a child. My mother had a shrine to him in the spare bedroom. A collection of his baby pictures, his pictures in pre-school, of him as a sickly little boy, his head bald from chemo, an IV in his scalp.
I sighed and ran my hands over her hair. "I don’t want to think about the past," I said gently. "Right now, I only want to think of me inside of you."
"I thought you had a patient..."
"I'll go later," I said and picked her up once more, carrying her into the bedroom at the back of the apartment, flicking on the light switch as we entered. I let her slide back out of my arms and took off her coat, leaving her standing beside the bed in my room while I went to the closet in the entry.
After I hung up our coats, I went to the server in the dining room and removed two shot glasses, then went to my refrigerator for the bottle of chilled Anisovaya. I returned to the bedroom with them, coming to an abrupt halt just inside the door to the bedroom.
Kate was standing by the closet doors, flipping through my photo album, which contained a variety of photographs of my subs in various bondage poses.
"Oh," I said, shocked. "I see you've found my book."
CHAPTER FOUR
She didn’t say a word, and kept turning page after page. I came to her side and looked over her shoulder, wondering what she thought of the pictures. They were artistic images taken by a friend who was a professional photographer.
In one photo that was taken from the side of the bed, I straddled Leah, one of my subs from a few years back. A blindfold covered her eyes and her hands and feet were tied to the bed frame. She sucked my cock while I leaned against the wall, my hands spread wide.
The photos depicted several of my former subs. I’d had the photos taken as a gift for them and provided each with their own personal album. None of them revealed my identity.
She closed the book when she came to a photo of me fucking Nikki, one of my wilder subs, who had sleeve tattoos and several piercings, my cock up her ass. I knew anal was a sore point with Kate. She was afraid of it. I put the vodka down on the table and turned her to face me, taking her chin in my hand, forcing her to look in my eyes.
"Are you OK?" I said, my voice soft. "That's quite… personal."
"They're beautiful," she said, her voice cracking a bit. "The pictures are gorgeous and erotic at the same time. I'm sorry. I shouldn’t have opened it. I feel like a voyeur."
I smiled. "I wanted them beautiful rather than pornographic. To me, D/s is an art. Photographs should convey that."
"Do you use them to, you know," she said, shrugging one shoulder. "Get off when you don't have a partner?"
"No," I said, and smiled. "I mean, I have before. I'm not going to lie. But they're meant more as a tribute to my former submissives. I don't want to have any photos out there that directly identify me. I gave them all copies of their photographs in a special book."
I handed her one of the shot glasses. She sniffed it, probably wanting to see if it was Anisovaya.
"You've hardly done anything with me, have you?" she said and glanced up at me.
I shook my head. "Don't want to go too fast with you. Besides," I said and held up my glass to her. "All this messy love stuff got in the way."
She smiled at me, giving me a look.
"Drink up," I said.
She did, shooting back the vodka when I did. When I finished swallowing, I leaned down and kissed her, wanting to taste the vodka on her tongue, sucking hers into my mouth. When I pulled back, I brushed a lock of hair from her cheek.
"What's going on in that mind of yours?” I asked because I wanted to get her talking so I could see how she responded. If she liked them, I’d get pictures of us together one day. “You must feel something about those pictures."
She turned back to the images and considered.
"Why does bondage excite you?" She examined one in which Leah was suspended off the ground, bound, gagged, blindfolded.
"Bondage puts a sub in a certain headspace. Unable to move or escape, she's also unable to resist. It's liberating,” I said, examining the photograph. “She can't help but feel what I make her feel. She can respond even more than normal to what I do because she has no other choice. Her body is mine. Her mind is mine. She's no longer responsible and as a result, she can feel everything without guilt."
Kate nodded, but said nothing else. I took her empty shot glass and placed it on the table beside the photo album. I took the album and led her over to the bed, sitting on the edge and pulling her down onto my lap. I opened the album to the first page.
"Tell me what you feel when you see these."
She inhaled and examined that first one. "They're very artistic. Did you set them up yourself or did you have a professional photographer do them?"
"A professional photographer who specializes in BDSM."
"Were the poses your ideas or his?"
"Mine." My chin rested on her shoulder as she sat on my lap. Kate turned a few more pages. "What do those make you feel?" I said once more, wanting her to open up.
She hesitated. "Jealous." She flipped the page. "Envy. Aroused."
I nodded. "What arouses you the most?"
She said nothing while she flipped through the photos, back and forth, and came to rest on one of Leah on her back, blindfolded, gagged, her hands bound, her feet bound. She wore nylons and a leather corset, her breasts spilling out over the top. I knelt between her knees, naked, splitting her labia with my cock.
She pointed to it. "This."
I leaned closer and examined it. "Interesting…"
"Why do you say that?"
"It's the most submissive," I said. "She's the most helpless. Unable to move at all, unable to see, or speak. Trusting me completely. Totally under my control."
Kate examined the photograph for a moment before flipping the page.
"What else do you like?" I said, squeezing her, slipping my hand beneath her sweater to cup a breast.
She stopped at one of Leah on her knees before me. I was dressed in black leather pants. One hand was on her head, her long hair caught up in my fist. She had my cock in her mouth, her lips taut around the head.
"This one."
"I like that one, too. Why do you like it?"
"It reminds me of your letter,” Kate said thoughtfully. “She's on her knees, her hands tied behind her back. Blindfolded. You're controlling her, guiding her by pulling her hair."
She flipped to another one that featured me performing anal sex and seemed to
linger over it.
"Do you like that one?" I said, my voice soft.
"I'm ambivalent about it," she said.
"Do you want to try these positions and acts?"
"The other ones, yes. This one?” she said, pointing to the anal. “Maybe some day. When I'm ready."
I closed the book and put it on the bed beside us. I turned her to face me so that she was straddling my hips, her hands resting on my shoulders. I wanted to remind her of that first night and how she wanted me to take the lead. How it excited her, despite being fearful. She fiddled with my tie, tightened and loosened it again, and tried to avoid looking me in the eyes.
"What?" I said, tipping up her chin so that she had to look in my eyes. "What are you thinking?"
She shook her head, shrugged one shoulder, and I knew she was embarrassed. Finally, she exhaled and leaned in close to me, her lips beside my ear.
"I want you to put your book away," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
I pulled back, searching her face, until finally, our eyes met. Her cheeks were red.
"You don't need to be jealous,” I said, amused. “I didn't love them."
"I know," she said. "But they mattered to you."
"I only want to be with you." I tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. How could she doubt how I felt for her? I couldn’t stand to be apart from her. I wanted her every moment of the day. Everything else was a diversion.
"I don't want reminders of all the other submissives you've had,” she said. “I don't want you looking at those photos."
I watched her, wondering what I could do to make her feel more secure. I reached down and touched her bottom lip. "Do you want us to make some photographs like those?"
"Yes."
"We will. Once we've explored more. I'm sorry that I've never done the whole scene with you. It seemed like I was always waiting for you at 8th Avenue instead of the other way around. And you always seemed to throw me off my game with your seductive ways…"
She smiled innocently. "What do you mean?"
"You have a way of disrupting my train of thought, Ms. Bennet. My plans all crumble when that happens. I planned on giving you exactly what you read about in my letters, but I failed."