Despite my best efforts, I didn’t arrive at home until quarter to nine.
The solar-powered lights lining the circular drive hadn’t turned on yet; the sun had only barely set. I asked Tony to drop me off under the porte cochere, rather than the front door, so I could go directly to the kitchen. I’d expected to find dinner waiting for me in the warming oven, but to my surprise, Neil waited behind the counter, too.
“Seven-thirty?” he asked with a tilt of his head and a smug smile.
“Like you’ve never worked late in your life.” I kicked my shoes off with a relieved groan and went to him. He looped his arms around my waist, and I leaned my head against his chest to breathe in his familiar scent. “Is Olivia asleep?”
“I had to put her to bed,” he said with an apologetic kiss on top of my head. “She was an absolute tyrant at dinner.”
I glanced over at her highchair, still smeared with food. “Am I the worst Sophie ever?”
“Of course not,” he reassured me. “And not for nothing, you’re my favorite Sophie.”
I reluctantly stepped back, my stomach growling. While Neil leaned down to get a dish from the oven, I hopped up on one of the stools at the island. “I feel like I never see her or spend time with her, anymore. Or you, for that matter.”
“If I had time to feel neglected, I would, I promise,” he quipped, depositing a round white ceramic dish on the trivet on the counter. “Caprese stuffed chicken?”
“Ooh.” I leaned over the dish and inhaled deeply. “Give me a fork.”
“I can give you a plate, as well,” he offered as he handed the utensil to me. Then, chagrined as I dug directly into the baking dish, he added, “Or you could dine from the trough this evening.”
I put up one middle finger as I chewed. I’d taken way too big a bite. When I could get words out around it, I mumbled, “Since when are you Mr. Sixties Housewife?”
“Since all I do these days is chase after a toddler. Who is also chased after by a nanny, thank god.” He shook his head. “You know, I wouldn’t survive parenting a child without support staff. How on earth do people manage?”
It was still hard not to roll my eyes at Neil’s cultural disconnect. He’d lived his entire life as a billionaire. His father had owned a major media company. His mother had come from the oldest of old money. As soon as he’d graduated college, he’d started building a media empire of his own. I’d once caught him Googling “poverty.”
“They get by, somehow, I promise.”
I watched Neil as he wiped down the counter with a kitchen towel. He’d done a complete one-eighty since we’d met. Well, since we’d met, again. It had been six years between our bonkers day of sex in an L.A. hotel and the morning that he’d walked into my boss’s office and informed me that he was my boss, now. After four years, cancer, the death of his daughter, and his subsequent hospitalization, he was a completely different Neil Elwood. He looked a little older, his hair was grayer, but he was still just as heart-stoppingly handsome as he’d ever been, and he could still melt the panties right off me with a single emerald-green glance. He’d quit working nonstop the way he had in the past, though he spent most of his time backseat-managing some of his businesses and calling in funding favors for the rape crisis center he’d founded. Everything he’d been through in our years together had changed him.
It had changed me, too. I’d gone from never-settle-down to a husband and somebody else’s kid. I’d gone from a dinky Chinatown apartment to an eight-figure mansion in the Hamptons—oh, and a stunning Fifth Avenue penthouse, an ultra-modern Reykjavik home, a palatial estate in the English countryside, a London townhouse, and a Venetian apartment I’d never even seen. Not to mention a closet I wouldn’t have dared to dream about on the salary I’d earned as a mere assistant at a fashion magazine. All of that seemed like it should have made me a kept woman, but my life with Neil had made me far more independent.
Even if I was really, really bad at that independence, I was determined to hold onto it.
“Neil…do you think I’m good at what I do?”
He looked up with a devious smile. “I think you are very good at what you do.”
“No, perv.” I rolled my eyes. “I meant the magazine.”
“I couldn’t say. I don’t work with you. The magazine’s selling well. The issues themselves look wonderful, even if I’m not particularly fond of some of the formatting—”
I cleared my throat.
Neil stopped himself and shrugged. We’d had the don’t-criticize-my-magazine conversation more than once. “If the magazine is successful, then you aren’t bad at your job.”
“Unless it’s ninety-nine percent Deja,” I admitted sheepishly.
He waited for me to continue, eyebrows raised quizzically.
“I’m always late,” I explained, using my fingers to tick off all the things I failed at every day. “I never know what’s going on, the only thing I’m really good at is picking out clothes, I take heaps of time off…”
Those couldn’t possibly have been all the reasons I sucked. It seemed like there should be so many more.
Neil braced his hands wide to lean on the counter. “You do realize that these are problems only you can control?”
I nodded miserably.
“Is it possible that the stress of your book release might be making you slightly more self-critical than you usually are?”
Again, I nodded. “Not to mention the class reunion.”
“Oh, Sophie, we’ve been over this,” he said, straightening and moving to toss the kitchen towel into the sink. “There is no reason for you to be insecure about going to your ten-year reunion when you’ve got two memoirs under your belt and you own a magazine.”
“You don’t understand what it’s like. When I was growing up, I always heard that poor people like us were hardworking, noble people, and rich people were sitting around getting something for nothing.”
“That is part of it,” admitted the man whose investments made him an annual upper-middle class salary every day.
“I just don’t want anyone to think I’m putting on airs. Now that I’ve been on national TV promoting my book about me and my billionaire husband, it’s going to be a little hard to convince anyone that I haven’t changed.” My dread intensified. “Maybe I shouldn’t go to the reunion, after all. There’s so much going on at the magazine—”
“Out of the question,” he said quickly. “Your mother would be crushed. Tony is meeting your family for the first time. Olivia has never met them at all.”
“And I promised my grandma.” I stabbed miserably at my dinner. “I just wish everything wasn’t coming one on top of the other. The print issue, the book, the morning show, the signing… By the time we actually get to Calumet, I’m going to be an even bigger ball of stress than I am now. I’m going to be a veritable Katamari of stress.”
“I’ll pretend I know what that is and just move along, shall I?” He reached across the counter and put a hand on the arm that wasn’t shoveling chicken into my mouth. “How about I come to the signing tomorrow night? We can stay in the city; it will be closer to the airport, anyway.”
“I don’t want to make a big deal out of all of this. I feel like everything is just…out of control.”
He nodded thoughtfully and got me a San Pellegrino from the refrigerator. Twisting the top off, he came around the island to sit on the stool beside mine. As he handed me the bottle, he said, “You’re not making a big deal. It won’t cost anything to change our plans. I’m already nearly packed. It won’t be any trouble at all to put together an overnight bag for Olivia and me.”
One of Neil’s most appealing qualities as a husband was that he often knew exactly what I needed, even when I had no clue myself. “Yeah?”
“Absolutely. As for the out-of-control part of the equation, I know how to fix that.”
“Oh?”
He inclined his head toward the door. “When you’re finished with that, go put your collar on.
”
Chapter Two
My collar. A platinum band no thicker than my thumb, studded with round cut diamonds and perfectly sized for my throat. When closed, it formed a seamless, glittering circle worth three point six million dollars. But its most valuable part were the words engraved inside.
Property of Neil Elwood.
It wasn’t the collar he owned. It was me.
I knelt on the soft carpet and waited, my eyes downcast as Neil moved around our bedroom. I wanted to watch him. God, I wanted to watch him. But making me wait, giving me time to imagine what was to come heightened my anticipation.
Before Neil, I’d never thought that I would get turned on being totally dominated. I’d liked guys pulling my hair or pinning my hands, but Neil was the only guy I’d ever felt truly comfortable submitting to. Even before we’d been romantically involved, I’d trusted him enough to let go completely and explore desires I’d never thought I would get to fulfill. Our bond as Dom and sub enhanced our marriage and built that trust a little more every day. His stern commands and lust for my pain offered security, comfort, and love.
The collar hanging heavy at my neck was a reminder of that love.
“Sophie, look up.”
I lifted my eyes slowly. My Sir stood before me, barefoot and bare-chested, clad in his black slacks and a belt he slowly unbuckled.
My mouth fell obediently open, and he smiled. “Not yet.”
Instead of opening his fly, he pulled the belt free and folded it in half. He struck the wide leather strap across his palm. The noise jolted me.
“Bend over the bed.”
I rose and moved across the room. Other times, there might have been implements laid out—paddles or rope or restraints. Tonight, after a long, tiring day, Sir would only do the bare minimum. But it would be enough.
As I took my position, he stepped up behind me. “No marks tonight. I don’t want you to be uncomfortable tomorrow.”
I chewed my bottom lip and considered arguing that using a belt contradicted his statement, but Sir did not like bratty subs. Just because he didn’t want to leave marks didn’t mean he wouldn’t punish me, and denial could be far worse than physical pain.
The raw silk of the duvet cover was a gold-tinged green that I’d bought because it reminded me of Neil’s eyes. The fabric was embroidered with a pattern of gold swirls that seemed innocuous enough but rasped my nipples when I rested on it. The air on my naked skin caressed me in the absence of his hands, tickling shivers down my sides.
I jumped at the sudden touch of his palms on my bare ass. He smoothed over my flesh, kneading gently. I arched my back and practically purred as he deepened the pressure. Massage brought the blood to the surface of the skin and reduced the severity of bruising. I luxuriated under every sweep of his long fingers.
His hand ventured down, the side of his pinkie incidentally parting me. He grew rougher, dragging his fingertips up and down my slit. I buried my face in the duvet at the slick, wet sounds my body made as I opened to him. He rubbed me with the flat of his hand. Then, without warning, he lifted it and brought it down hard across my vulva.
I jumped, a squeak of pain pushing past my lips. Another strike made me squirm, and he held me in place with an arm across the small of my back. “Hold still.”
“I’m sorry, Sir,” I panted. I centered my feet on the carpet so I wouldn’t slip. But that wasn’t the problem. Something held me back from fully achieving the mindset necessary to turn all the pain he would inflict on me into the drug that my body craved.
“You’re tense,” he admonished. “What do you need?”
“Music,” I said without hesitation.
“Sophie?” he asked expectantly.
“Music, Sir,” I revised my answer. “I’m sorry, Sir.”
“You’re forgiven. Stay where you are.”
He stepped away to turn on some music, leaving me exposed and panting, desperate to grind against the edge of the mattress. He took a long time choosing the music, too long in my horny and impatient opinion. He settled on Lana Del Rey; “Freak” filled the room over the sound system.
Lana is the perfect soundtrack for getting spanked by a hot older man.
With a kid in the house, I’d had a difficult time getting into the mood in a silent room. I knew I was being silly, because there was no way Olivia would hear us from her nursery in the other wing. Plus, her nanny, Mariposa, almost always had a white noise machine running in her bedroom, so it wasn’t like she would randomly hear us, either. And the distance alone would provide us cover. But I still needed a sonic cloak of privacy before I could truly let myself go.
Neil returned to me and glided one palm over my ass.
“Are you ready?”
“Yes, Sir,” I whispered.
The belt landed across my ass with an ear-splitting crack. It sounded far worse than it felt, but god, did that noise ever heighten the experience.
“Polite girls say thank you when they’re given a present,” he reminded me.
“Thank you, Sir.”
“How many would you like?”
“All of them,” wasn’t the appropriate answer. “As many as you’d like me to have, Sir.”
“Good girl.”
That simple praise started the spiral. The slow spin out of my mind and into a place where the outside world disappeared. No responsibilities, no pressure, just me and my Sir and my bone-deep need to please him.
The belt cracked across my skin, again. My fingers dug into the duvet. It wasn’t the worst pain he’d ever inflicted on me—far from it. But it wasn’t the pain itself, so much as the action behind it. Knowing he did it not just to get me off, but because it got him off, too, made me feel…used. Dirty. Ashamed.
Worshipped.
Another slap of the leather brought a squeak of surprised pain from my lips.
“Too hard?” he asked.
I shook my head. “No, Sir.”
“I’m serious, Sophie. I don’t intend to cause lasting pain, this time. I’ll be very disappointed with you if you’re not honest.”
I pressed my forehead against a patch of cool fabric. “Maybe a little too hard, Sir.”
His lips brushed my skin as he kissed along the length of the burning stripe across my ass. “I’ll be more careful.”
Another strike curled my toes in the carpet.
“I won’t be, next time,” he went on. “Perhaps, when we return, we should spend a night out.”
“Spend a night out” was our code phrase for spending the night in our secret hideaway, a lavish reproduction of the Pavillon Français at Versailles that the home’s former owners had nestled in an out-of-the-way corner of the compound. For a wedding present to the both of us, Neil had transformed it into a truly decadent palace of depravity.
“I have a mind to shackle you over the bench and cane you until you beg me to stop.” His voice rasped as he spoke; his threats turned him on as much as they did me.
“Please, Sir,” I moaned as another slap landed.
“Maybe I’ll gag you. You do look so pretty drooling around a gag, tears running down your face.” Another smack of the belt. “Trying to beg me, though you can’t speak.”
Chills raced over my back, and not just from the pain, but anticipation. He would make good on every promise.
“Then, I might tie you down on the Sybian. Let you struggle a bit.” He tossed the belt aside and gave my ass one last sharp smack with his hand. He dug his fingers into my flesh, his grip possessive.
The Sybian he’d threatened me with was the most powerful vibrator I’d ever experienced. It had to be straddled because of its shape, which gave him the ability to shackle my ankles, keeping me captive over it. Once, he’d left me on it, screaming and writhing, while he’d read a book.
Or pretended to. He was really good at feigning disinterest while he tortured me.
But not tonight. That was clear from the urgency in his touch when he dropped to his knees and jerked my hips back. Hi
s mouth sought out my sex to feast, not savor, his tongue going straight for my clit to swirl over it rapidly. I rocked against his face, but he pinned my hips to the edge of the bed and held them, giving me no wiggle room at all.
“Don’t move,” he warned, moving one hand to the small of my back while the other slipped between my legs. He slid one finger into me, and my eyelids fluttered closed. “Do you like that?”
“Mmhm,” I managed, struggling against the temptation to cant my hips and draw him deeper.
“Sophie, I asked you a question, and I expect a proper response.”
“Yes, Sir. I’m sorry, Sir.” My limbs trembled with the effort of staying still.
“I’m certain you are.” He plunged his finger deeper, hard. I gasped and squealed in surprise. “Speak when I ask you to. If I don’t, stay silent. These are easy enough rules to obey, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“And you won’t come without my permission, will you?”
“Yes, Sir.” I swallowed. “Do I have your permission to come, Sir?”
“No.”
He went back to gently stroking my clit with his tongue and pressing hard on my g-spot. Keep still, keep quiet; he might say that was easy, but he knew my body like he’d written a Ph.D. thesis on how to make me come. He tickled the fingers of his unoccupied hand up the back of my thigh, and I clenched my teeth, trying to ignore the sensation.
I willed myself to relax and not react by reminding myself that I’d done this before and I could do it, again. Because he asked. Because he wanted me to. That’s why I could lay there motionless while he tried everything he could to make me squirm. It was a test—to see if I would obey him instead of the demands of my body.
I forced my shaky breaths to slow. A spiral of pure need tightened around my cunt, my clit, and before I could anticipate the end, I was almost there. “I’m close, Sir!”
He immediately stopped. “How close?”
Close enough that I want to grind on your hand and come before you can stop me. I pushed that thought from my head. I’d been trying so hard lately to be good. “Very close, Sir. Maybe…don’t move your hand. At all.”
The Sister (The Boss Book 6) Page 2