by Lilia Moon
He hums appreciatively and waggles his eyebrows.
I can’t help but laugh. I love that he’s making this easy enough that I can.
He breaks off a piece of his garlic bread and feeds it to me. “Sometimes knowing that you have to find the words releases those demands out of wherever you’ve hidden them.” His fingers caress my cheek on the way back to his plate. “Tell me about the feather. That was a clear no for you.”
One that still surprises me in its vehemence. I check in with myself and discover I suddenly know a whole lot of things I didn’t know a few hours ago. “I think that’s a pretty strong preference, actually.” And a more global one. “Hands. Not paddles or vibrators or—”
My new vocabulary comes to a grinding halt and I feel my face heating up. “Sorry. I’ve probably just eliminated most of your fun.”
He scowls at me. “Don’t ever fucking apologize for saying what you want.”
He means it. “I thought BDSM uses a lot of toys.” I definitely saw a lot at the club.
“BDSM is about power and control and surrender. It’s all up here.” He taps his head. “The rest is just stage props. Some people need lots of props, some don’t need any at all.”
I’m not sure I deserve the compliment he’s trying to pay me. “Maybe I’m just scared of them.”
“No.” He seems very sure of himself. “You’re just a sub who needs touch, who grounds there. There’s power for both of us in you knowing that.”
I frown. “Why is there power for you?”
“It gives me something to give and take.” He’s back to watching with that deep attention. “I already know you’re angling on getting your next spanking, so for you, that’s a fun consequence we can play with.”
Pushing the limits. I’m beginning to understand the appeal. And then I make the leap and I’m suddenly a lot less happy. “There could be other consequences. You could take touch away.”
“That’s something we could explore, yeah. Deprivation. Several hours naked on the bed alone.”
I’m pouting and I don’t care. “That would suck.”
He laughs and offers me more of his garlic bread. I’m shocked to discover mine is gone. “It would, but imagine how the sex after would be.”
My aching parts start throbbing again. Insistently.
He reaches forward and puts his fingers under my chin. More touch. “There’s something I need to ask you. You put sex as a soft limit in your contract. We’re already messing with that line pretty thoroughly.”
I don’t even have to think about this. “Green.” And then I think. “Except, wait—you can’t do that and expect me not to come.”
“Oh, I can.” The cocky look is back in his eyes, but he’s shifting on his chair. I’m not the only one getting hot and bothered. “But I won’t. How do you feel about hour twenty-five?”
I’m lost. “What?”
“The contract is for twenty-four hours. At ten a.m. tomorrow morning, it’s over. I’m asking you to stay for a couple of hours after that. With new terms.”
I can feel the slow, stupid grin working its way up my face. “With sex. And orgasms. And possibly a spanking.” I can’t believe I added that last one, but it feels totally right.
He’s laughing, but I can tell that it’s at both of us. “Yeah.”
I love that he asked. I love that he has this many words for me. I’m in way over my head and yet I feel ridiculously comfortable—and a lot of that has to do with how much he’s willing to talk. “Okay. I’ll stay.”
I can see what that does to him, and it makes me feel like I could bench press this entire condo building with one hand while I finish my spaghetti with the other. So I offer him that, too. “I want to know what it feels like when I come for you.”
His eyes are sucking me straight into his soul. “I’m going to be inside you when that happens. I want you to know that.”
He wasn’t kidding about the focus on communication—and if I keep thinking about what he’s just said, I’m going to explode without him laying a hand on me. I look at him instead, take a long sip of my water, and grin. “You’re really good at this talking stuff. You’d make a great wedding planner.”
He looks as horrified as I’ve ever seen him.
I can’t hold the giggles in.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Damon
Training never goes like this. I’ve had overconfident subs, worshipful ones, women who were confused and women who never wanted to let me out of their sight ever again.
I’ve never had one sit and eat noodles with tomato sauce on her chin and laugh at me and make me feel like the center of her world.
She might be new to this, and she might not be much into the props, but in every other way, Emily has stepped into this and amazed me.
I can still feel my finger in her ass as she teetered on the edge, total trust in her hazed eyes. She let me take her right to the brink. And she held on to it because I told her to, because I told her not to let go.
When this woman finally comes, it’s going to rearrange the atoms in both of our worlds.
I want to pull her into my lap and make it happen right now, tomato sauce and all. But I won’t. I promised to show her what can live in the space between a Dom and a sub if they’re doing it right, and we are.
I can’t believe how fast she’s moving. Learning at the speed of light—about herself, and about what it is to be a sub, and about how incredible we can be together.
The first two are my personal crack, why I do this.
The third one scares me silly. She’s a wedding planner. I run a sex club. This is a twenty-four-hour contract.
She’s watching me now. I need to be careful.
She reaches forward, a little tentative, and touches my hand. “Has anything surprised you?”
I grin at her over my noodles. Time to take this back to ground where I’m really comfortable. “Yeah. Apparently Emily Madigan likes anal play.”
She turns the color of the tomato sauce and looks down at her empty plate. “I didn’t mark it as a hard or soft limit.”
“I know.” I tip her head back up. “I can recite your contract word for word. I read it and I pay attention, and you need to know that. But anal play is an area that can trigger stuff for a lot of people, so it surprises me that it’s something you know you want and that you felt brave enough to ask for already.”
She’s still really rosy, but she’s also clearly determined to have this conversation. “I’ve tried it a little in the past, and I liked it. I guess I don’t really know enough to say where my limits might be, but I liked what you did today.”
I wink at her. “And you thought you might not come if I wiggled my fingers there instead of inside your pussy.”
She throws her spoon at my head, laughing. “Do you see everything?”
I see an utterly open and brave and gorgeous woman stepping into exactly what she wants, and it’s undoing me. “For future reference, I can totally make you come with a finger in your ass, too.”
She’s spluttering with laughter, but I can see the curiosity growing in her eyes. The desire.
I rapidly rearrange my plans for the afternoon. We’ve had our food, and our words. Now it’s time to play. She’s had one taste of where this can go and she gave me more than I ever thought possible.
This time I want more.
I stand up, and her eyes fly to my face. She knows her Dom has just arrived. “Follow the hallway back and you’ll find a room at the end on the left that looks like a library. There are drawers under the window seat. They’re full of toys. Find something you want me to use on you and then go sit on the end of my bed with it in your hands.”
I can see her frowning. She’s just told me she doesn’t like toys, doesn’t want them.
I let her watch my eyes, read the sternness in them. Power isn’t always polite. Surrender isn’t always easy.
She turns on her heel with enough attitude that she almost earns the span
king she’s forgotten she wants. I let her go.
She’ll need her energy for what comes next.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Emily
He’s totally infuriating. I can feel my feet stomping as I walk down the hallway to follow his orders. It would be a far more effective temper tantrum if the carpet weren’t three inches thick.
I told him what I want. He listened.
And now he’s trying to prove that he doesn’t give a damn.
I’m not stupid. I can read the hesitation in his eyes. Damon Black might know everything there is to know about sex and domination, but if he thinks this is just about those things then he’s not opening his eyes when he looks in the mirror.
I hit the end of the hallway and take the door on the left. He’s right, it totally looks like a library—or it does until I pull open a couple of drawers, still wanting to kick something.
I stare. Meghan and I took a really tipsy tour through a sex shop once. It had nothing on the contents of Damon’s drawers. There are things I recognize, like vibrators and lube, and things I don’t want to recognize, like handcuffs. And then there’s everything else.
I pick up a silver chain that has something that resembles a small, shiny clothespin on each end. There’s another set in the drawer with little weights attached. My brain splutters—and then offers up exactly what those little rubber tips could clamp down on.
My nipples contract, but I’m not sure it’s in protest.
I drop the chain back in the drawer. I’m definitely not ready for those.
I’m vaguely aware that my anger is gone. I didn’t come here looking for anything more than twenty-four hours. He offered to teach me. I need to keep it as simple as that.
My fingers run over items in the drawers. Some make me shudder, some make me cringe—and some are making me wet just looking at them.
I touch a blindfold, but that would be an easy choice. Same for the soft red ribbons. He trusted me to hold the headboard rails this morning, and somehow I’m proud that I did that for him. I don’t want to lose that.
I know I’m avoiding the stick of curvy purple beads. I take a deep breath and pick them up in my hands. They’re smooth, and cool, and harder than I imagined. I trace my fingers from the smallest to the largest.
I know what they are. And I know what I told Damon. I can’t begin to imagine these in my ass, but I know that’s where he’ll put them. I close my eyes and listen to the new knowledge I have inside me. The new demands.
I grab the beads and a bottle of lube and slam the drawers shut. I’m going back in mad, even if that isn’t fair. Maybe I need something to cover up some of my truth too.
Chapter Thirty
Damon
I hear her banging around in my playroom, and I’m amused. Aroused. Impressed by what she’s managing to unleash on very short notice.
And curious as all hell about what she’s chosen.
I wait until I hear her enter my bedroom, and then I head down the hall to take my own turn in the playroom. I slide open the drawers, and everywhere there is evidence of her passing. A mussed blindfold. I pick that one up, pleased she didn’t choose something that looked easy. Blindfolds are anything but easy, but my sub doesn’t have enough experience to know that yet. I fold it up in my hands. She’s about to find out.
It takes me a minute to realize the purple anal beads are gone. I can feel myself grinning. Brave sub. I pocket a bottle of some thick lube just in case she didn’t grab the necessary accessories.
And then my eyes settle on the nipple clamps—the small set with the chain running between them that has obviously been picked up and put back down again, and not very neatly. I grin again as I imagine what it takes to drive Emily to disorder, and pocket the nipple clamps. I’m not sure yet whether I’ll use them, but we’re damn well going to talk about them.
I turn to leave, feeling like a kid in a candy shop, and not the one in my drawers. Emily is a fucking fantastic playground.
It doesn’t surprise me when I walk into the bedroom and find her on the end of my bed, temper still stirring in her eyes. It doesn’t surprise me to see her fingers playing nervously with the anal beads, either. I take them out of her hands and drop the nipple clamps there instead.
Her eyes shoot up to mine.
I smile at her. “What, you thought you were the only one who got to pick?”
She swallows, hard.
I pull the blindfold out of my pocket. “This one too.”
That doesn’t make her swallow at all, which reminds me just how green she is. I tip up her chin, knowing that I’m going to take her beautiful eyes away from me soon enough. “Any objections?”
She shakes her head mutely.
“Any questions?”
A pause, and then another head shake.
“Words, Emily. Has anything changed about your limits? Any of these items you’d like to hard out on today?”
She takes her time, looks at each of them again, and then tilts her head back to look at me. “No, Sir.”
My playground. I run a pleased, approving hand down her arm. “Good. Stand up.”
She does, even though she’s looking dazed.
I don’t bother explaining that I have yet another change of plans. My bed is a comfort zone for her, and I don’t want anything about this next part to feel comfortable. It’s time for her to meet the nitty-gritty of what it means to submit.
I sit down on the edge of the bed she’s just vacated, pull her in between my legs, and slide my fingertips under the loose shirt she’s wearing. One quick yank and her naked breasts are exposed, right at the level of my mouth. I hear her gasp, but I ignore it. I reach out and take one nipple between my teeth, the other with my fingers.
I’m not gentle.
I can feel her shock, her brain grappling with what just happened. And I can feel her back arching, pushing her gorgeous nipples closer, asking for more.
It’s her body I listen to. Her brain has safewords if she needs them, and it’s not her mind that needs to understand this. Submission is body, mind, and soul, but it’s her body that knows how to get her there.
I don’t spend long getting her nipples ready—she doesn’t need it. I’m tempted to let my other hand play between her legs, but I want her to see the clamps coming.
I want her to choose.
Still rolling her left nipple hard between my fingers, I look at her face and bring up the nipple clamp where she can see it. “It will sting as it goes on. Yellow will get it right back off. Red will stop play entirely.”
She nods, and I can see her fear.
Good. I want her paying total attention. I move the clamp slowly toward her nipple, aware that’s she’s stopped moving. Stopped breathing.
I settle it in place and she hisses. I watch her eyes.
Three heartbeats, and then she breathes out.
My brave, beautiful sub. I hold up the other one where she can see it and start working her other nipple between my fingers. “What color is your traffic light, Emily?”
She breathes in again, and then something gorgeous lights in her eyes and she smiles at me. “Green.”
She barely flinches as the second one goes on. Just looks at me, her face wide open.
I see the moment when she realizes that the weight of the chain will tug gently on her nipples every time she breathes. I see the moment when she realizes she likes it. I see the moment when she realizes I knew she would.
I have never ever wanted to fuck anyone so badly in my entire life.
Instead, I reach for the chain clamped to her nipples and tug on it gently. “Come to my playroom.”
I’d meant to take her there to make her nervous. To push on her edges. As I say the words, I realize I’m inviting her there instead. Which is going to push on mine.
Chapter Thirty-One
Emily
All the feeling in the world is in my nipples.
They hurt. They’re yelling, protesting. And they’re goi
ng numb. Sort of. Every time I breathe the fire comes back.
I’m following Damon Black down his very nice hallway with my yoga pants sliding down my hips, my feet bare, and my nipples on fire. And all I want to know is what he’s going to do next.
I walk into his library and stop in the doorway as he settles himself in what looks like a very oversized recliner. He looks over at me and waves at his lap. “Strip and then come sit here.”
Stripping doesn’t take long, but it’s a totally different experience when I discover what happens when I move my arms. I manage to get my pants off and take the short walk to the chair. I settle into his lap gingerly. The pain in my nipples might be winning.
He reaches a hand between my legs and strokes his fingers in firm circles. I writhe in his lap. Carefully. “This time I want to hear your noises, Emily. All of them.”
That alarms me. This isn’t something I want to share with his neighbors.
His hand between my legs is almost soothing. “I have the best soundproofing in Seattle.”
That’s all it takes for my moans to break free. He strokes me just long enough for me to forget the fire in my nipples, and then he stops. I can already feel the strange haze that comes over me when I give myself to him.
He’s positioning me, laying me back so that my head and shoulders are resting on one arm of the recliner and my knees are up on the other. He lifts the chain attached to my nipples. “Okay?”
It is now. “Green.”
He slides his hand down my belly and taps on my thigh. “Lift up your legs.”
I hear a whirring noise and stare, shocked, as some kind of padded bar rises out of the armrest under my knees. Damon swings the bar and adjusts me so that it holds my legs up. “Comfortable?”