Winning Cait

by Zoe Mullins

  She groaned. She knew it was a test. He was asking her to trust him. “Yes Sir.”

  She put down the phone on the console between her and Ben then slid her hands up beneath her skirt, lifting her bum from the seat, but still trying to keep herself covered. She slipped her panties down her legs, taking them off. There was no good way to fold a thong so she just passed it to Ben.

  Ben picked up the phone. “Yes. She did. Very discreetly.” He laughed. “No I didn’t get to see anything.” He passed the phone back to Cait.

  “Hey,” she grumbled.

  “You sound better already,” Jack told her. “Tell me, do you feel very wicked to be sitting there without panties?”

  “I’m feeling very embarrassed.”

  “No you don’t.”

  He was right she didn’t. She liked obeying him. It calmed her. “No, I don’t. You know I like pleasing you.”

  “Hmm. I like that.” His voice was heated, like melted chocolate. “I like knowing that every time you move tonightyou are going to remember why your pussy is bare, and you are going tothink of me and what wicked things I have planned for you this weekend.”

  She smiled at that. She would be thinking of him all evening long.

  “Caitie, do you think I can push you further tonight?”

  “What do you have in mind, Sir?”

  “Are you wet?”

  She felt her cheeks flush and looked hesitantly at Ben, though she knew he could only hear her side of the conversation. “Pretty sure, yes.”

  “I want you to slide your fingers back beneath your skirt, get your fingers nice and wet, and then offer your fingers to Ben.”

  Cait took a deep breath.

  “You can use your safe word, but I would very much like for you to show him your appreciation for the ride.”

  She knew if she stayed silent too long, Jack would think he had pushed her too far. She wasn’t sure if he had. He had given her an out. She could use her safe word. But was this really safe-word worthy? It was just Ben. Ben wouldn’t think anything less of her if she did this. He understood the game.

  “Okay,” she said finally and passedthe phone to Ben.

  “Hey, Jack. Yeah she just passed me back the phone. Um, no she is looking at me, like she’s trying to decide something. I think she made her decision; she’s sliding her hand underneath her skirt.”

  “Tell him I’m sliding two fingers into my wet pussy.”

  “Yeah, did you hear that? She’s got a dirtymouth on her.” Ben laughed. “He says he knows how to put that dirtymouth to good use.”

  He went back to the call. “Yeah, you should see how much she’s enjoying making her fingerswet. She has the sweetest little smile and I swear her eyes went from virgin to vixen. No not yet. Oh wait, here we go, and I thought she was going to keep her hand down between her legs until she came.”

  “Hey! It wasn’t that long,” she protested.

  Ben shot her a look and put his hand over the speaker of the phone. “Do you want me to tell him that you’re being a brat?” he asked, grinning.

  She shook her head but smiled conspiratorially with him. When Ben took his hand away from the speaker she said in her best vixen voice, “I’m supposed to offer this to you as a thank-you for the ride.”

  Ben groaned. “Seriously?” he asked both Cait and Jackson. “Oh man, you seriously owe me for this. Yeah, okay.” He ended the call and put the phone back on the console.

  He wrapped his hand around her wrist and stared at her fingers. Two fingers were glistening with her wetness. He sucked her fingers to his mouth, and she felt a shudder run through him, or maybe that was just her.

  “You taste fucking amazing,” he said when he finally let her fingers go. “Jack said to have a good time tonight. You’ve been a very good girl and he’ll be thinking of you.”

  “Thank you, Ben.”

  “My pleasure, and, Cait,” he said as she climbed out of the truck. “Jackson said no coming without him.”

  She stuck out her tongue at him and slammed the door.

  Chapter Eleven

  “I can’t believe I did that,” she told Sophie. “It’s so not like me.”

  Except Cait kind of feared it was just like her. Jack gave her an order and she obeyed. But as embarrassing as it was, it also had felt freeing. To do what Jack asked. To know that if she did this, it would make him happy.

  “Ah sweetie, you are thinking too hard. Let me get you another drink.” She gestured to the waiter to bring them another round.

  “Oh no, I couldn’t,” she said. “It took this drink kicking in for me to just tell you.”

  “Well I could tell something was going on by the way you were squirming on that chair.”

  “I am not squirming.”

  “That is definitely squirm.”

  “Okay.” Cait laughed. “Maybe a little squirm.”

  “So when do you see him again?”

  “Jackson? After class on Friday night.” She blushed. “But Ben tomorrow morning when the crew shows back up to work on my roof.”

  “Don’t worry about him. He’ll pretend it never happened. He just played a role, it wasn’t personal.”

  “Does it bother you that he was part of it? The scene?”

  “No.” Sophie shrugged. “Yes. I don’t know. Maybe. But we’re not together. He can see and do anything that he wants. And I meant it. He’ll pretend it didn’t happen. He played the part Jack wanted him to play.”

  “Do you involve others like that?”

  “I have,” Sophie confirmed. “I used to play with someone who could not get into the right headspace, when we played in public anyway, until he was forced to perform with another. Somehow, having to obey me by doing something as simple as kneel in front and kiss the hand of another player settled him down.”

  Cait considered that. She had rarely found it difficult to focus on Logan when they played in public. That was part of the allure of the public scenes—her entire focus was on her Dom and her desire to make him proud.

  It wasn’t until she and Sophie had begun hanging out that she had started to examine and sometimes question why she reacted a certain way to certain elements of the lifestyle. Like why did that tone make her mushy inside. Sophie had given it a lot more thought than she had, and was a good sounding board for her ideas and worries.

  Cait hated the term natural submissive, but she couldn’t deny the inner peace she found in the submission. To submit, to please her Dom, it calmed her in a way not dissimilar to meditation.

  “I understand that Jack was using Ben as a surrogate since he wasn’t there himself, but why did I get anxious to begin with? It seemed both of them knew what I was feeling and why.”

  Sophie reached across the table, her hand covering one of Cait’s. “Sweetie, this is one of the things we know about you. You are ultra-responsive to that alpha vibe. Ben can’t help it any more than Jackson can. He dominates. From what you told me, you responded subconsciously to that part of Ben that reminds you of Jack, and probably of Logan too. It told you to yield to Jack. When it did, you felt better.”

  “So I really shouldn’t feel embarrassed?”

  “Not with me. Heck, consider yourself lucky it was Ben who recognized your anxiety.”

  Cait lifted a brow in question.

  “If it had been me,” she explained, “I’m not sure I would have let you off so easy.”

  “Promises, promises,” she stuck out her tongue at Sophie. “So before the other girls get here, why don’t you tell me what is not going on between you and Ben.”

  “Remind me why we are friends?”

  “You may know me, but I know you too. Spill the beans.”

  “Before the surgery, before everything, you know I was a bonafide brat, but sub all the same. And he remembers me that way.”

  “Are you so sure you’re not?”

  Sophie glared at her.

  “Hey, I’m not saying you’re not a good Domme too, but I know you are more restle
ss now than before.” Sophie may now be fashioning herself as a Domme, but Cait thought it really just a show of bravado. More of a kiss my ass comment on life. Cait understood that since fighting cancer, Sophie felt as if she needed control over something. As a Domme she got to call the shots. She could also make sure no one saw the scars or the physical changes that treatment had forced upon her body.

  “I may be restless, but I don’t think I can go back,” she admitted.

  “Would he switch for you?” Cait took a sip of her Bellini, playing with the straw.

  “I doubt it.” She frowned. “He’s alpha all the way.”

  “Then why are you even considering it?”

  Sophie ran her hands through her hair, gathering it briefly at the back of her head before letting it go. It cascaded down around her shoulders. “Has there ever been someone who you thought of as your exception.”

  “As in, I don’t care if I am married, I would so do him.”

  “Exactly!”

  “Johnny Depp. Hands down. If he wants me, he can have me tomorrow. Any which way from Sunday.” They giggled. “And, of course, Jackson. Even when Logan was alive. If Jack had shown up at the door and ordered me to my knees, I would have gone. No question.”

  “That’s what I’m talking about,” Sophie said, frowning.

  “You have it as bad for Ben as I do for Jackson, and you know that leaves you only one choice.” Cait was serious. “You have to give it a try. You at least have to talk to him.”

  “That’s the only choice?”

  Cait nodded then pointed toward the front where Maggie and Dayna were arriving at the restaurant. Right on time.

  “Then I guess I know what I need to do.” She winked at Cait then stood up to greet their friends. Girls’ night was just beginning.

  * * * * *

  Benjamin grabbed a beer from the fridge then reached into his pocket and pulled out the thin scrap of lace and tossed it onto the kitchen island. “You owe me, man.”

  Jackson plucked them up, holding them out in front of him. “They really don’t cover much, do they?” he looked at Ben and they both laughed.

  “I’m not sure what’s worse. Knowing someone is naked under their clothes, or knowing they are wearing those,” Ben said, sitting down at the kitchen island.

  “I think knowing she’s wearing them is worse. Knowing that this little piece of material is all that stands in the way of the world and that soft bare flesh.”

  “Stop it.” Ben groaned. “You waxing poetic about her pussy is more than I should be subjected to.”

  “Sorry.” Jack chuckled. “I do appreciate your help tonight.”

  “Man, I didn’t think she would go for it.” Ben took a deep swallow of Dos Equis. “Yeah, okay, the panties, but not the rest.”

  “I was half expecting her to refuse, maybe even use her safe word.” It had been a calculated risk. She needed him to assert his control over the situation. To take her confusion and offer it grounding. A good Dom would do that for his sub. But he was keenly aware of her fear that he would share her with another.

  The panties were one thing—he was always a bit of an exhibitionist—but to share her sweet cream with another… To offer her submission by giving Ben a taste. It had been a risk, and he would show her how proud he was of her Friday night.

  Jack frowned when he saw Ben grinning at him. “What?”

  “You have got it so bad for her.”

  “No doubt.” Jackson drained his beer. There was no point in denying it. “How about you?”

  “My sister set me up with a nicegirl last week.” He laughed and Jack raised his brow in question. “Nice as in a devout Catholic girl from a good family. When I suggested dessert after dinner she said the only craving she still had was for my hard cock down her throat.”

  “A very nicegirl then?”

  “Yeah.” Ben nodded. “But I don’t think I’ll see her again.”

  “She want a ring in exchange for that blowjob?”

  “So much!” He shook his head. “I know Gina means well, but she has to stop trying to set me up with women who think dinner and sex leads to marriage and children.”

  Jackson chuckled. “You know you would never be happy with an easy girl. You need a woman who will challenge you.”

  “Got someone in mind?”

  “I’m thinking Sophie.”

  “How do you do that shit?”

  “You wear your heart on your sleeve,” Jackson told him. “Have you at least tried asking her out?”

  “All the time. Last time we spoke, we ended up arguing.”

  Jackson knew what Ben didn’t say, that he felt at fault. He had let her pull away when she was diagnosed. Ben had told him more than once that he had no right to hold on to her. He hadn’t put a ring on her finger, or even a collar around her neck. He sympathized with his friend.

  “You know we hadn’t even told our friends that we were together,” Ben continued. “We should have. I should have instead of letting her dictate the terms of our arrangement.”

  “You can’t continue to beat yourself up over it. The terms were what you both wanted at the time. Believe me I understand not appreciating someone until they are gone.”

  “I don’t know that she can give me what I want.” He sighed. “And I don’t know that I deserve it. I know what cancer did to her. I know about the surgery and radiation. I was there but I let her shut me out.”

  “So stop wondering if she can be what you need, and ask yourself can I be what she needs?”

  “A sub?” He didn’t seem surprised by the suggestion. “Actually, I have thought about it but I don’t know that Ican do it. I’m not sure she’d even let me try. Even as her Dom I couldn’t get her to acknowledge it outside a scene. She’s a stubborn brat.”

  “Then you are stuck taking it one day at a time, and trying to win her trust.”

  “Is that the advice you are taking with Cait?”

  “With Cait, it’s all about transparency this time.” Jack pulled out a form from the pile of work on the dining room table.

  “She ran last time because she was afraid of what I might do. I don’t want there to be any mights on the table.” Jackson smiled grimly. Thinking about what he would do if she ran again.

  “You thinking a formal contract?”

  “I’m thinking a wedding ring.”

  Ben grinned. “No shit?”

  “None. But we need to talk and I am so tired of talking to her and not fucking her.” He could tell Ben was incredulous. It was pretty pathetic that he’d let weeks go by and hadn’t fucked her yet. “Cait and I need to discuss limits.”

  Jack pulled the back page from the stack. “As you saw tonight, she’s not just a sub-in-the-bedroom type of woman. She needs someone who cantake charge, but not take over, and I have to prove that I can be that for her.”

  “For what it’s worth, I think you are moving in the right direction with her,” Ben agreed. “She is very responsive, but she is equally scared.”

  “I know. And she has good reason to be. I may have been a Dom but I had no idea how to translate that into a relationship. I had never been in love before, let alone with one of my subs.”

  As his mentor, Jack had always been honest with Ben, even about his own shortcomings.

  “Had you had a lot of subs at that point?”

  Jack let out a deep breath. He had been a man-whore in his twenties. “Yeah, Logan and I had gone through quite a few. No one serious though, until Cait. She was also the first time and only time I have introduced a woman to the lifestyle.”

  He hadn’t shared that with Ben before. When Jack had begun at Steele Construction that summer, he thought the gods had cursed him. They had given him a perfect sub. All the signs were there, and were damn hard to ignore, no matter how he tried. But Cait had no idea what that was, what she was.

  “I hope to get a ring on her finger this time. But to do that I have to prove to her that being with me isn’t going to stifle any of he
r newfound freedoms.”

  “That might not be as hard as you imagine.” Ben grinned. “But I can’t say that I won’t enjoy her leading you on a merry chase.”

  “Don’t think for a moment that women don’t rule our worlds.” They touched beers in an amen.

  Chapter Twelve

  When Jackson had stopped by Friday morning to tell her that his mother had derailed their plans, she hadn’t been able to help but laugh. He had looked so contrite as he’d told her that his mother had planned an impromptu family dinner, which included his sister and her two kids.

  Cait had tried to worm out of it, assuring him it wouldn’t be a problem since she had a class until seven anyway. They could reschedule.

  “Oh no,” he had said, pulling her to him. “You are not getting away that easy. You get to come with me.”

  “She didn’t invite me to dinner.” She had pushed lightly at his chest but couldn’t budge him. “You are on the hook for this.”

  “Unfortunately.” He had nipped at her ear. “When you take me you get them too. And yes, Mom did extend the invitation.”

  “Damn, I hadn’t realized that. I think I need to rethink this whole dating you thing,” she joked. In truth she wasn’t that freaked about dinner at his parents’. She had always liked Jack Senior, and his mom, well, she thought they had established some sort of accord. Dinner might actually be fun.

  What she now realized, as she leaned against the doorframe and listened to Jack argue with his sister, was how wrong she was. Suzanne had been staring daggers at her over the dinner table. And while not openly hostile, it was evident that the woman was seething just below the surface.

  Right after dinner, Cait had watched as Jack steered his sister out into the garden and had begun demanding to know what the problem was.

  “I can’t believe you would bring her here,” Suzie hissed, her blunt bob cut swinging around her chin as she turned and pointed to the house.

  “Keep your voice down,” Jack growled. “What is wrong with you tonight?”

  “With me? You bring that tramp into our parents’ home and you ask what is wrong with me.”