She scribbled something on the pad of paper he couldn’t read upside down. “For a writer, you have really shitty penmanship,” he said.
She ignored him, still scribbling furiously, until she snapped the notebook up and turned the page, then returned the purple tip to the lined paper, almost ripping it in her haste to write faster. Ms. Elizabeth Clark seemed practically oblivious to him as she wrote. He watched as she focused on the page, and then she closed her eyes. Silky brown hair cascaded from behind her ear, hiding part of her downturned face from his view. She didn’t seem to notice, and he resisted the urge to reach out and tuck the strands behind her ear.
He’d seen this kind of devout focus before, on the face of people fully immersed in a scene, totally unaware of anything around them except the person, or people, playing with them. She was amazing like this. Writing with her eyes closed seemed to make her go faster. The scrawls glided above and below those orderly lines, and when she got to the bottom of the page, she flipped the book over and effortlessly started at the top of the blank surface without opening her eyes.
It bothered him that she wouldn’t acknowledge him, but he relished the opportunity to study her in her natural habitat. Her cheeks tinted pink, her mouth slipped open, and it almost killed him not to snatch away her notebook and read what she was writing. Whatever it was must have been hot, because the evidence of her growing arousal was as clear to him as the reaction in his pants to seeing her in this state.
Her muscles were tense, coiling up and readying for release. Oh, how he’d love to give her that release. Had she allowed herself such pleasure recently? Her whole demeanor, the way she’d curled her lip in disgust at the club, told him she didn’t have a rampant sex life. His mind taunted him with an image of him sliding under the table and burying his face between her legs. How long would it take for her to realize he was touching her there? For her to spiral out of control and stop writing?
He shifted in his seat, trying to adjust his pants, and couldn’t quell a soft gasp when his hand passed over his cock. Instantly, Liz’s head snapped up, her unfocused eyes blinking open. After a second, her brow lowered, and her gaze collided with his. His hands were still under the table, and there was no way she wouldn’t notice when he brought them up. She pierced him with her gaze, pinning him to the spot as her cheeks flamed red.
“Sorry,” she said. But she didn’t sound it.
“Don’t worry about it. Does that mean your writer’s block is cured?”
She laughed, glancing down at the table where his hands should be. She set down the pen and shook out her hand. “I wish. A mini scene doesn’t really count. It’s probably crap anyway.”
“Doubtful.” He reached for the notebook, but she huffed and held it away.
“I don’t think so.” Her breathy voice had vanished, replaced by that prissy tone he’d almost started to find endearing. She turned to a new page.
He cleared his throat. “You said the book wasn’t about exploring the kink, but you still didn’t tell me what it is about.”
“Plot-wise? I have no idea. Plots don’t matter as much as the characters and their relationship. It’s about love, like all romance books.”
“That’s pretty vague. I can’t help you if I don’t know what you want.” Here he was again, pushing her to verbalize her needs. He had to push. It was in his nature.
“I need to understand what they want and how they fit together in this Dom/sub relationship. Since I don’t really understand anything about feeling those kinds of urges, it’s hard for me to make them seem real on the page.”
“A Dom/sub relationship is like any other. It’s about finding the right fit. The person or persons who help you be the best you. It’s harder in a kinky relationship because there’s more of a balance of power. If you think about a conventional relationship between a couple, it’s usually about an equality of power in today’s world. Two people who view each other as equals, as partners. A lot of time, it’s hard to reconcile that modern idea of equality with letting someone dictate things to you.”
“Yeah, no kidding.” Her tone said she was speaking from some kind of personal experience. Had she tried to explore a D/s relationship with someone who was the wrong fit? That could sometimes lead to disaster, as he’d found out. A bad Dom could scar a sub for life. The way Suzanna’s first Dom had done to her. Chase’s heart ached as he remembered some of her harrowing stories.
“So it’s about power?” Liz asked, yanking him back to the present.
“Sometimes. Sometimes it’s about safety. About knowing you can be yourself with your partner, about not being afraid to tell him or her what you want, about letting someone see far into your head, your soul, and knowing they’ll still like you afterwards. Sometimes that includes love, sometimes not. A lot of people come to my club to play out their fantasies with strangers.”
“How can you trust a stranger? That doesn’t make any sense. Trust is something that’s built between people. It’s not just something that happens, and you can say, Poof, I trust you.”
“Yes. But we have rules to help people feel and act safe. I’m the resident dungeon master. I lay out my laws. And I enforce them. Easy as that. People know they can trust the boundaries and play within them. Nothing ever goes further than the two parties are willing for it to go. Only once has something come close. A Dom who wanted to stop, knew he had to, and a sub who didn’t. That was a long time ago.” Did his voice betray the fact that the Dom had been him? That that night had been what finally ended his relationship with Suzanna all those years ago? She’d wanted him to punish her, to mark her, and he hadn’t been able to, paralyzed by the horror of her first Dominant who’d abused her. He’d safe-worded out, but she hadn’t wanted to listen.
“What happened?”
“A dungeon monitor intervened. The situation was handled. And it didn’t happen again.” This time his tone was harder, letting her know the subject was closed. That had been one of his sharpest moments of failure, and he didn’t want to think about it, let alone discuss it with the judgmental Ms. Clark. Seeing Suzanna yesterday had shaken him up badly. He forced his mind back to the topic at hand—guiding this curious author to the truth about his lifestyle, and maybe hers as well.
Fortunately, she let the subject go. “I think I get it. Maybe. But…wanting to have that kind of power over someone or to give someone that kind of power over me is still foreign. Maybe I won’t ever understand it.” She shuddered.
He had an idea. And he was pretty sure she was going to hate it as much as he loved it.
“Come upstairs with me,” he said.
Liz’s face paled. “I don’t trust you,” she said.
He clamped his mouth shut on his initial reaction. She was so fucking quick to argue with him. She absolutely didn’t have a submissive bone in her body. But he knew the spark of heat he’d seen in her eyes at the club was real. It had to be.
He wanted to force her trust, to flip the switch she had in her head that would let her submit to his will, but he couldn’t. He wasn’t positive that switch existed in everyone’s head, but something about how resistant she was to this lifestyle told him it existed in hers. People who were repulsed by BDSM didn’t write novels about it.
Could he open her eyes to the truth about herself? More importantly, did he want to be the one to do so? Being someone’s first Dom was tricky business, and honestly, if he failed at anything else right now, he wasn’t sure he’d survive. But she compelled him. Called to him. Maybe it was that edge of disdain he’d gotten from her when she first appeared at the club. Right up until he got in her face and told her to back off, and she had. His blood surged south at the memory.
“Yeah, that’s apparent. I’m not asking you to trust me; I’m asking you to come upstairs with me so I can show you some things.” He stood, not bothering to hide his erection. It would be pointless to try, even if he wanted to.
“What things?” she said.
“I told you we had
to do this whole research business my way.”
Still, she didn’t budge. So he held his hand out to her and did the only thing he could in this situation. “Please,” he said. She wasn’t his sub, much as he’d come to wish she was in the past few days. She had no reason to obey him. And she wore distrust like a cloak around her. He’d never met anyone who was so damned wary all the time.
She gulped, the sound audible in the quiet kitchen. She scrutinized his hand and then looked back up. Whatever she saw on his face must have convinced her, because she placed her hand in his, and he tugged her to her feet. She stumbled forward, gasping as her body slammed into his. He steadied her.
“I’ve got you,” he whispered.
She swallowed again, and his gaze followed the movement of her delicate neck muscles. He returned his attention to her face just as her tongue darted out to moisten her top lip. His whole body tensed in response, his cock twitching. Liz’s green-rimmed eyes stared into his, that spark of heat in her brown-and-green irises more apparent than he’d seen it at the club. He wanted to yank her body more fully against his and press his erection to her center. Wanted to kiss those prim little lips and pin her body beneath his as he showed her she wasn’t as fucking vanilla as she thought she was.
Chapter Six
“Come upstairs with me,” Chase had said, his voice a low command. As she let him lead her across the kitchen by the hand, her heels clacked on the hardwood floor, and her pulse surged. She was already so turned on she could hardly think straight, let alone have a real conversation. His touch had spurred her from note taking to plunging into the middle of a sex scene. She was weak. A weak little girl who couldn’t defend herself against the kind of pleasure spiraling through her.
When her attention had snapped back to him at his moan, he hadn’t tried to hide where his hands were. It had taken every ounce of her remaining strength not to arch her back like a cat and send her own hands under the table. She was slick with need, parched with fear, and walking the tightrope of desire. She’d never been so freaking hot in her life. The accusation in her words when she’d said she didn’t trust him sounded real. Yes, she would blame him for making her feel like this. It had to be him.
Even in her youth when she’d had an active sex life, she’d never experienced desire like this. It was one reason she didn’t seek out partners now as an adult. Sex hadn’t ever been too exciting, but rather awkward and dissatisfying. She’d mostly kept doing it through college to piss off her father.
If this stinking book wouldn’t stop plaguing her, the only way to get it written would be with his help. Twenty minutes in his presence had already done some good. But God, she couldn’t trust him. She knew that. He’d stopped twice at her request, but what if she was too weak to tell him to stop a third time?
What if it wasn’t really him she didn’t trust so much as herself?
He paused at a staircase beside the fridge. She hadn’t realized it was there until he stopped. She’d been too busy staring at the ridges of his back muscles as he moved. He didn’t say anything, didn’t turn around, but his pause gave her an out. She wanted to be a coward, yank her hand away from him, and refuse to go upstairs. But her traitorous body wanted to follow him. And if she were perfectly honest with herself, so did her curious mind.
She took a deep breath and whispered, “Let’s go.”
She couldn’t see his face, but something told her he was smiling as he tugged her up to a long corridor. He kept her hand in his as her heart thundered out of control. A closed door to the right opened with a snick, and she gulped.
This was like a mini version of the club. In his house. In the middle of suburbia. She blinked a few times, trying to reconcile the collision of different worlds, and she barely noticed when he led her inside and closed the door behind them. The blinds were drawn, and soft light suffused the space from three floor lamps. He released her hand and moved to the center of the room with stiff strides.
“This is a personal playroom.” He opened a small chest at the foot of a four-poster bed and lifted the inside compartments. It expanded out, showing her several shelves of toys she wasn’t sure she could name. “These are instruments. BDSM play isn’t about these things.” He picked up a long dildo and waved it in front of him. Her gaze locked on the bobbing brightly colored phallus he swung around in front of him at hip level. It drew her gaze right to his crotch. Chase was definitely sporting a healthy erection. And he made no move to hide it.
“These are tools.” He set the dildo down and picked up a small silver ball. “They’re like your pen and paper, or your laptop. It’s not the tools that are as important as what you do with them, and with whom.”
He set the ball down and picked up another small device. He clicked it on, and it buzzed to life.
“This little guy is called a bullet vibrator.”
He stalked closer to her, holding the buzzing tool in his hand. She stayed glued to the spot. He raised his eyebrows, as if waiting for her protest as he held the vibrator inches above the skin of her breastbone. She said nothing.
“Liz?”
She swallowed. “What?” she croaked.
“I need something more than you standing there if you want things to…progress,” he said.
Crap. She wanted to stand here and allow him to do whatever he wanted with that bullet, but he wasn’t going to let her get off that easy. She wanted to be a reluctant participant, to let him make the decision for her so she wouldn’t have to be responsible for this out-of-control desire thundering through her, or its consequences. Obviously, he wouldn’t allow that. She nodded, hoping it would be enough.
“Ms. Clark,” he said, his voice a warning.
“Okay. Yes.”
“Yes to what?”
“To you showing me…things.”
“And what about to touching you?” he said, moving the bullet so close to her skin that the vibration made the hairs on her arm stand up.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“You will tell me to stop when you want to, understood? That’s all you have to say.”
She nodded.
He narrowed his eyes, those dark eyebrows lowering.
“Okay, yes. I hear you.”
“Good,” he said, setting the cool metal against her chest and letting it pulse against her. The heat from his body cascaded over her all at once, and her knees threatened to give out.
He trailed the vibrator down the V of her shirt and dropped it between her breasts. Her breath left her in a ragged rush. He turned from her, his feet pounding across the floor to the other side of the room as she quivered. She was so close to orgasm she could almost taste it. She watched with half-closed eyes as he took out a small wrist cuff from somewhere in his collection. He returned and lifted her hand, placing a chaste kiss to the pads of her fingers.
Cocking his head to the side, he waited again for her to say no. Stupidly, she said nothing. She was trapped in this room, though she was pretty sure he hadn’t locked the door. The urge to run was strong, but the urge to stay, to learn more, was stronger.
“Liz?”
“Yes,” she whispered, her voice coming hoarsely from her parched throat.
She knew she couldn’t be trusted to say no when need spiraled out of control inside her. He’d told her when she said she wanted to stop, he would. For some foolish reason, she believed him. And she felt guilty about her trust in him, even worse for the fact that she didn’t want to tell him to stop. How could she possibly be enjoying this? The thought of letting him take that vibrator and shove it deep inside her until she screamed should repulse her. Instead, an answering flash of heat soaked her core.
She relished having control of her life, her decisions. Maybe that was the problem here—she did have control, a voice, a choice. And she was choosing to stay, even if she would hate herself later for her weakness. He wound the soft leather around her wrist and buckled it in place. The weight of the snug material felt altogether familiar and foreign, li
ke wearing a heavy bracelet.
Kiss me, her body demanded, but she refused to voice the plea. The buzzing between her breasts became more insistent, and a wicked grin spread on Chase’s face. He held a small remote in his hand.
“It’s about surrender,” he whispered.
She shifted, and the vibrator slipped lower to the underside of her breast, closer to her taut nipple, where she wanted the sensation to travel. But short of sticking her hand into her shirt and moving it herself, she wasn’t going to get what she wanted. She wasn’t that bold.
Chase flicked the switch, and the vibration stopped. The sudden lack of sensation made her whimper. So much for keeping things professional.
He turned his back to her again and returned with the matching cuff for her other wrist. She didn’t wait for him to take it but presented her hand to him without a word. A silent consent. He secured the cuff and clicked a leather tie to one of the loops with a small hook. He placed the other end of the tie in her opposite hand, though both ends had hooks that could tie the cuffs together. Bound, but not really. He seemed to know that tying her up like that would be going too far, that she would tell him to stop. She was glad, because she wasn’t quite ready for this…whatever it was…to end.
He held the middle part of the leather and led her toward the bed. He tugged it lightly from her hand and wrapped the tie once around the tall poster of the bed, then handed her back the free end. She clutched it tightly, the cold metal digging the tiniest bit into her palm.
To Sir Page 6